WAR  BREAD 


265    060 


ALonzo 


Tayl 


or 


WAR  BREAD 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK  •    BOSTON  •   CHICAGO  •   DALLAS 
ATLANTA  •   SAN  FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  LIMITED 

LONDON  •    BOMBAY  •   CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OF  CANADA,  LTD. 

TORONTO 


WAR  BREAD 


BY 
ALONZO  ENGLEBERT  TAYLOR 

Professor  of  Physiological  Chemistry,  University 

of  Pa.     Member  of  the  United  States  Food 

Administration  and  of  the  War  Trade 

Board,  Washington 


fork 

THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 
1918 

A.U  rights  reserved 


COPYM€HT,    1918 

BY  THE  MACMILI/AN  COMPANY 
Set  up  and  electro  typed.     Published,    May,    1918 


DEDICATED  TO 
HERBERT  CLARK  HOOVER 

IN  THE  HOPE  THAT  IT  MAY  AID  HIS 

FELLOW    CITIZENS   TO 

SUPPORT  HIM 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

OUR  DUTY 7 

WHAT  THE  ALLIES  NEED   ....  16 

WHAT  WE  POSSESS 28 

WHY  WE  ARE  LIMITED  IN  WHEAT    .  40 

FOOD    VALUE    OF    THE    DIFFERENT 

GRAINS 50 

WAYS  OF  STRETCHING  WHEAT      .     .  62 

WASTE  IN  WHEAT  .  93 


WAR  BREAD 

OUR  DUTY 

IT  is  my  purpose  to  present  briefly 
and  in  untechnical  language  a  state- 
ment of  the  wheat  problem  that  is  now 
confronting  the  people  of  the  United 
States.  I  have  used  the  title  War 
Bread  because  with  us  every  problem 
in  cereals  ultimately  ends  in  the  ques- 
tion of  bread.  The  bread-grains  are 
wheat  and  rye.  If  we  are  short  of 
bread-grains,  we  must  modify  our 
bread.  If  we  are  very  short  of  bread- 
grains,  we  must  substitute  other  cereals 
for  bread.  Every  bread-eating  people 
clings  to  bread  as  long  as  possible,  an 
expression  of  psychology  rather  than 


8  WAR  BREAD 

of  physiology.  The  war  problem  of 
bread  is  also  entangled  in  factors  of 
industry  and  trade  that  demand  and 
deserve  careful  consideration. 

War  bread  did  not  come  to  our  Al- 
lies as  one  of  their  earliest  burdens  in 
the  war.  It  comes  to  us  with  the  first 
of  our  war  obligations.  The  proper 
definition  of  our  relations  to  our  Allies 
states  that  we  will  share  with  them 
every  responsibility,  over-load,  sac- 
rifice, saving  and  loss,  in  order  that 
with  them  we  may  justly  share  in  the 
cultural,  geographical,  and  govern- 
mental freedom  that  success  of  the  al- 
lied armies  will  bring.  Prior  to  our 
entrance  into  the  war,  the  allied  peo- 
ples had  suffered  losses  in  resources 
and  in  men  of  which  our  people  have 
no  conception.  No  matter  what  sacri- 
fices and  losses  the  future  may  bring, 
it  is  not  possible  that  our  total  relin- 
quishments  at  the  end  of  the  war,  in 


WAR  BREAD  9 

proportion  to  our  resources  and  popu- 
lation, can  equal  those  of  the  allied 
peoples.  When  a  few  brave  Ameri- 
cans are  killed  in  a  trench  sortie  in 
France  this  tragedy  is  announced  in 
headlines  in  our  daily  papers.  In  the 
papers  of  the  Allies  are  published  once 
a  month  statements  of  monthly  casual- 
ties that  run  into  tens  of  thousands. 
This  comparison  illustrates  our  re- 
spective losses  in  the  war  to  date.  It 
is  from  every  point  of  view  the  impera- 
tive duty,  and  ought  to  be  esteemed  the 
privilege,  of  the  American  people  to 
assume  our  full  share  of  the  war  bur- 
den. 

Our  Government,  our  military  and 
naval  forces  and  our  industries  are  ef- 
fectively active  in  participation  in  the 
war,  but  our  people  have  only  com- 
menced individual  participation  in  war 
work  of  serious  import.  The  first  real 
war  work  devolving  upon  the  Amer- 


10  WAR  BREAD 

ican  people  as  a  whole  lies  in  the 
adaptation  of  our  mode  of  living  to 
meet  the  food  situation  of  the  al- 
lied peoples.  Regarding  ourselves  as 
united  with  our  Allies  in  every  point 
of  effort,  sacrifice,  saving  and  loss,  our 
total  foodstuffs  ought  to  be  at  the  least 
equally  divided.  We  must  regard  the 
stretch  of  water  between  the  United 
Kingdom  and  France  as  a  fiction,  the 
range  of  mountains  between  Italy  and 
France  as  non-existent,  and  the  ex- 
panse of  ocean  between  North  Amer- 
ica and  Europe  as  but  an  incident  in 
transportation.  We  must  regard  all 
of  our  foodstuffs  as  pooled.  The  very 
least  that  ought  to  be  done  is  to  assure 
to  each  man,  woman  and  child  in  the 
United  Kingdom,  France  and  Italy  the 
per  capita  portion  that  would  accrue 
to  each  of  the  235,000,000  individuals 
comprised  in  our  combined  popula- 
tions if  all  the  foodstuffs  of  the  United 


WAR  BREAD  11 

Kingdom,  France,  Italy,  Canada  and 
the  United  States  were  pooled  and 
divided  pro  rata.  Any  lack  would 
then  be  quantitative,  a  division  to 
each  person  share  and  share.  But 
more  than  this,  in  consideration  of  the 
fact  that  the  Allies  are  carrying  bur- 
dens so  much  larger  than  ours,  par- 
ticularly burdens  applied  to  the  house- 
hold, if  there  be  ever  a  choice 
presented  or  enforced  by  circum- 
stances between  them  and  us,  we 
ought  to  choose  the  harder  part.  If 
there  be  alternative  between  greater 
or  lesser  labour  in  the  preparation  of 
food,  greater  or  lesser  convenience  in 
household  management,  higher  or 
lower  satisfaction  in  the  diet,  richer  or 
poorer  maintenance  of  the  normal  ra- 
tion in  quality  or  articles,  we  should 
make  it  our  privilege  to  assume  the 
worst  part  and  to  bestow  upon  them  the 
best  part. 


12  WAR  BREAD 

This  resolves  itself  into  different 
duties  with  the  two  sexes.  Applied 
to  men,  it  is  the  duty  of  men  in  Amer- 
ica to  accept  without  complaint  such 
alterations  in  our  diet  as  will  enable 
the  men  of  the  United  Kingdom, 
France  and  Italy  to  have  a  diet  as 
nearly  as  possible  adapted  to  their 
needs,  tastes  and  customs.  Applied 
to  women,  it  is  the  duty  of  women  in 
America  to  assume  additional  burdens 
in  the  household  in  the  preparation  of 
food  and  to  accept  changes  in  the  ac- 
customed diet,  in  order  that  the  women 
of  the  United  Kingdom,  France  and 
Italy,  may  have  their  burdens  of 
household  management  reduced  to  the 
lowest  possible  level.  American  men 
must  visualize  what  the  men  of  the  Al- 
lies have  been  through  and  what  they 
are  enduring  now.  With  this  must  be 
contrasted  what  we  have  been  through 
and  what  we  are  enduring  now.  The 


WAR  BREAD  13 

women  of  America  must  visualize 
what  the  women  of  the  Allies  have 
been  through  and  what  they  are  endur- 
ing now,  and  compare  this  with  what 
our  women  have  been  through  and  are 
enduring  now.  From  these  compari- 
sons, the  duties  of  the  men  and  women 
of  America  will  become  glorified  into 
privilege. 

It  is  the  purpose  of  the  following 
pages  to  make  clear  just  what  must  be 
accomplished  in  order  that  we  may 
give  to  every  member  of  the  allied 
peoples  his  full  share  in  our  pooled 
foodstuffs,  at  the  lowest  comparable 
cost  and  with  the  least  labour.  It  is 
not  to  be  inferred  that  the  food  prob- 
lem concerns  bread  alone.  We  must 
consume  less  of  sugar,  meats  and  fats 
than  has  been  our  custom,  in  order  to 
supply  the  allied  peoples  with  amounts 
that  shall  enable  them  to  raise  their  re- 
duced rations  to  a  plane  less  below 


14  WAR  BREAD 

their  normal.     The  bread  problem  is 
however  the  most  pressing. 

Difficulties  in  transportation  will 
make  it  impossible  for  the  Allies  to 
secure  during  the  coming  months  the 
normal  quantities  of  food.  There  is 
no  prospect  of  a  reduction  of  Ameri- 
can foodstuffs.  Our  efforts  must  be  to 
hold  the  quantity  of  the  foodstuffs  of 
the  Allies  to  the  highest  point  per- 
mitted by  transportation  facilities,  and 
to  make  their  diet  in  the  qualitative 
sense  as  close  to  the  normal  as  possible. 
In  order  to  do  this,  we  do  not  need  to 
reduce  our  diet  in  quantity,  but  it  is 
imperative  that  it  be  modified,  and 
these  modifications  apply  to  cereals 
more  than  to  any  other  articles  in  our 
diet.  We  need  not  fear  that  our  diet, 
as  a  people,  is  endangered;  our  fixed 
habits  alone  are  endangered.  Only 
one  fourth  of  the  human  diet  is  con- 


WAR  BREAD  15 

cerned  with  indispensables,  three 
fourths  are  substitutables,  our  food 
problem  is  concerned  with  the  latter 
alone.  Applied  to  particular  comes- 
tibles rather  than  to  physiological 
constituents,  the  diet  is  a  mixture  of 
essentials  and  nonessentials;  of  the 
former  there  are  few,  of  the  latter 
many.  To  continue  this  year  the  diet 
of  custom  amounts  to  adopting  a  pro- 
German  diet. 


WHAT  THE  ALLIES  NEED 

HPHE  season  of  1917  brought  poor 
-••  crops  to  the  allied  nations  in 
Europe.  The  yield  in  wheat,  rye,  bar- 
ley, corn  and  rice  for  human  consump- 
tion in  the  United  Kingdom,  France 
and  Italy  reached  a  total  of  only  10,- 
600,000  tons.  This  is  less  than  half 
of  the  normal  cereal  consumption  of 
these  peoples.  The  crop  failure  was 
due  to  unfavourable  weather,  lack  of 
labour,  scarcity  of  fertilizer  and  de- 
pletion of  work  animals.  When  one 
considers  that  in  France  agriculture 
was  carried  on  almost  entirely  by 
women,  reduction  in  yield  was  not  to 
be  wondered  at,  even  under  favour- 
able climatic  conditions. 

The  people  of  the  United  Kingdom 

16 


WAR  BREAD  17 

consume  cereals  to  the  extent  of  about 
one-third  of  their  diet;  the  people  of 
Italy  to  the  extent  of  over  40  per  cent. ; 
bread  constitutes  over  half  of  the  sub- 
sistence of  the  people  of  France. 
Crop  failure  endangered  the  most  es- 
sential article  of  the  diet.  In  order 
to  secure  the  cereals  required  to  main- 
tain their  subsistence,  our  Allies 
needed  to  import  from  the  United 
States,  Argentine  and  India  an  amount 
of  cereal  equal  to  the  home-grown 
grains.  The  amounts  of  wheat  and 
rye  desired  from  North  America, 
where  grain  was  first  available,  was 
about  7,000,000  tons,  leaving  2,000,- 
000  million  to  come  from  the  Argen- 
tine and  2,000,000  to  come  from 
India.  To  haul  wheat  from  India 
to  Italy  is  an  economic  run,  but 
to  haul  wheat  from  the  Plate  to  Eu- 
rope is  a  waste  of  tonnage  compared 
with  the  haul  from  the  United  States. 


18  WAR  BREAD 

In  order  to  appreciate  the  position 
of  the  Allies,  one  must  consider  not 
only  the  quantity  of  cereals  but  also 
the  methods  of  consumption.  The  in- 
habitants of  the  United  Kingdom, 
France  and  Italy  are  essentially  bread 
eating  peoples.  There  is  a  small  con- 
sumption of  oatmeal  and  rice  in  the 
United  Kingdom.  Italy  consumes 
considerable  rice,  which  is  there  a 
staple  dish.  The  people  of  Italy  also 
consume  a  million  and  a  half  tons  of 
corn  per  annum  in  the  state  of  polenta. 
In  addition  to  the  use  of  bread,  wheat 
flour  is  used  widely  in  Italy  in  the 
preparation  of  pastes.  In  France  the 
cereals  largely  consumed  are  wheat 
and  rye,  and  these  almost  exclusively 
in  bread.  Viewing  the  Allies  as  a 
whole,  we  may  say  that  it  was  their 
normal  practice  to  consume  90  per 
cent,  of  their  cereals  in  wheat. 

Practically  speaking  all  bread  con- 


WAR  BREAD  19 

sumed  in  the  allied  countries  is  baked 
in  shops,  home  baking  being  almost 
unknown.  Since  forty  per  cent,  of 
the  food  of  the  Allies  is  bread  and  this 
bread  is  baked  in  shops,  it  follows  that 
only  sixty  per  cent,  of  their  food  is 
prepared  by  the  housekeepers.  Since 
the  women  of  the  Allies  are  already 
overworked  to  a  serious  degree,  it  is 
of  particular  importance  that  this  40 
per  cent,  of  ready-to-serve  food  should 
not  be  reduced,  since  this  would  result 
in  additional  household  labour  being 
imposed  upon  them. 

It  is  not  possible  to  make  bread  on 
a  commercial  scale  with  less  than  70 
per  cent,  of  wheat  and  rye  flour. 
These  are  the  grains  that  contain  glu- 
ten, which  when  mixed  into  dough  and 
raised  under  the  action  of  yeast  yields 
a  bread  that  can  be  transported,  keeps 
well  and  meets  all  of  the  desiderata 
of  a  staple  cereal  food.  It  is,  there- 


20  WAR  BREAD 

fore,  important  that  we  should  supply 
the  Allies  with  wheat  and  rye,  (to 
which  may  be  added  barley),  to  the 
extent  of  75  per  cent,  of  their  total 
cereal  needs,  if  they  are  to  maintain 
their  normal  habits  of  bread  consump- 
tion. They  can  use  25  per  cent,  of 
rice,  oats  or  corn  to  make  mixed  bread 
with  75  per  cent,  of  flour  prepared 
from  wheat,  rye  and  barley  in  the  pro- 
portions available  to  them.  If,  how- 
ever, the  amount  of  rice,  corn  or  oats 
rises  above  30  per  cent.,  commercial 
baking  of  bread  ceases  to  be  possible, 
and  these  people  will  have  to  have 
breadless  meals,  and  for  these  meals 
cereals  in  other  states  than  bread  must 
be  served.  Our  allies  accept  corn 
gladly  for  use  in  mixed-flour  bread. 
That  we  have  sent  them  relatively  lit- 
tle this  winter  was  due  to  the  high 
water  content  of  the  corn  of  last  year's 
crop  and  to  the  disorganization  of 


WAR  BREAD  21 

railway  transportation  during  the 
winter  months.  Corn  cannot  be  sent 
over  during  the  spring  months  on  ac- 
count of  liability  to  germination. 

There  is  no  mystical  property  in 
wheat  or  bread.  The  use  of  cereals  in 
the  form  of  bread  is  merely  a  matter 
of  convenience,  but  this  becomes  of 
vital  importance  in  the  stress  under 
which  the  women  of  the  Allies  are  at 
present  labouring.  It  ought,  there- 
fore, to  be  the  purpose  of  our  people 
to  yield  to  the  Allies  such  amounts  of 
wheat  and  rye  as,  added  to  their  own, 
will  enable  them  to  have  three-fourths 
of  their  total  cereals  in  the  state  of 
bread-grains,  in  order  that  their  ce- 
real consumption  may  occur,  as  in 
their  normal  lives,  largely  in  the  form 
of  bread.  If  this  is  not  done,  then 
we  compel  them  to  serve  boiled  rice  or 
hominy,  oatmeal  porridge,  corn  meal 
mush  or  corn  pone  instead  of  bread. 


22  WAR  BREAD 

Apart  from  the  use  of  polenta  and 
risotto  in  Italy  and  the  use  of  oatmeal 
and  rice  in  England,  these  people  do 
not  understand  the  routine  use  of  these 
cereals.  They  would  have  to  devote 
additional  labour  to  their  preparation. 
If  the  2,000  homes  in  a  French  vil- 
lage purchase  their  bread  from  one 
baker,  this  means  that  half  of  their 
food  will  be  prepared  by  a  few  men  in 
a  single  well-equipped  bakery,  with 
very  little  outlay  of  fuel.  But  if,  in- 
stead of  issuing  the  total  cereal  in  the 
state  of  bread,  only  two-thirds  is  so  is- 
sued, the  result  will  be  that  in  each  of 
the  2,000  homes  the  cereal  portion  for 
one  meal  in  the  day  will  have  to  con- 
sist of  cooked  rice,  oatmeal,  corn 
mush  or  corn  bread.  This  will  re- 
quire at  least  half  an  hour  of  the  time 
of  the  over-worked  woman.  It  will 
require  fuel, — with  coal  at  $110.00  a 
ton.  It  will  impose  upon  the  mem- 


WAR  BREAD  23 

bers  of  these  suffering  families  the  use 
of  foods  to  which  they  are  unaccus- 
tomed. We  know  that  to  use  these 
cereals  acceptably  requires  sugar, 
milk,  butter  or  fruits,  in  excess  of  the 
amounts  needed  when  bread  is  con- 
sumed. We  have  milk,  sugar,  butter 
and  fruits  in  abundance.  With  the 
sugar  rations  of  the  Allies,  the  use  of 
sugar  with  a  breakfast  cereal  is  out  of 
the  question.  Their  dairy  stock  is  se- 
riously depleted;  the  ration  of  butter 
is  very  low;  they  lack  fruits.  They 
would  have  to  use  the  cereals  plain, 
which  we  know  by  experience,  would 
not  be  palatable. 

The  use  of  rice,  corn  and  oatmeal 
would  be  just  as  healthful  for  the  Al- 
lies as  the  use  of  bread  composed  of 
three-fourths  bread-grains.  It  is  not 
a  question  of  healthfulness.  It  is  a 
question  of  work,  habit  and  palat- 
ability. 


24  WAR  BREAD 

From  every  point  of  view,  it  ought 
to  be  regarded  as  reasonable  and  nat- 
ural that  Americans  should  wish  to 
maintain  the  normal  cereal  intake  of 
the  Allies  in  the  form  of  bread.  The 
bread  with  25  per  cent,  of  corn  or  oats 
will  not  be  a  natural  bread,  but  it  will 
be  a  bread  of  good,  nourishing  quali- 
ties, if  not  of  normal  taste.  It  will 
enable  them  to  maintain  their  cereal 
intakes  in  the  normal  proportions  of 
their  diets,  without  forcing  upon  them 
any  additional  labour  in  the  prepar- 
ation of  their  food.  The  bake-shops 
of  these  countries  have  learned  to 
make  mixed  breads.  The  traveller 
from  America,  recalling  the  splendid 
bread  of  France,  will  scarcely  recog- 
nize French  bread  in  the  present 
product.  But  it  is  bread;  it  can  be 
bought  in  convenient  amounts,  repre- 
sents the  normal  proportion  in  the  diet, 
and  as  such  is  gratefully  accepted, 


WAR  BREAD  25 

since  the  people  of  France  have  ceased 
to  be  hypercritical  of  their  bread. 
The  bread  is  not  merely  a  mixed 
bread;  it  is  a  bread  of  much  higher 
extraction.  Wheat  is  now  milled  to 
85  per  cent,  in  France,  and  this  flour 
forms  the  basis  for  the  mixed-flour 
bread.  Under  these  circumstances, 
commercial  bakers  have  not  found  it 
possible  to  make  bread  of  the  texture 
for  which  French  bread  was  noted. 
The  bread  is  frequently  soggy,  it  is  apt 
to  be  heavy,  and  it  is  unquestionably 
less  digestible  than  the  normal  French 
bread.  It  is  not  a  normal  bread  in 
taste,  due  to  the  presence  of  other 
cereals ;  but  it  is,  as  stated,  bread,  and 
as  such  fills  the  extremely  important 
role  of  bread  in  the  diet. 

The  same  argument  holds  for  the 
peoples  of  the  United  Kingdom  and 
Italy,  almost  to  the  same  extent  as  for 
France.  They  are  not  as  dependent 


26  WAR  BREAD 

upon  bread  as  are  the  French,  but  as 
pastes  can  only  be  made  from  wheat 
flour  the  argument  applies  fully  to 
Italy.  In  England,  while  the  amount 
of  bread  is  not  as  large,  nevertheless, 
the  dependency  of  the  labouring 
classes  upon  bread  has  always  been 
pronounced.  We  can  eat  breakfast 
cereals  two  meals  in  the  day  if  neces- 
sary, the  Allies  need  bread  three  meals 
each  day. 

The  bread  ration  has  been  recently 
reduced  in  all  of  the  allied  countries. 
Up  to  December,  they  had  attempted 
to  maintain  the  bread  ration  in  normal 
quantity.  Scarcity  of  tonnage,  due  to 
the  ravages  of  the  submarine,  have 
finally  made  it  necessary  to  reduce  the 
bread  ration.  This  has  been  done  in 
all  of  the  three  countries.  The  pres- 
ent bread  ration  in  France  provides 
daily  of  mixed-flour  bread  the  follow- 
ing amounts  to  the  designated  classes: 


WAR  BREAD  27 

Children  less  than  3  years  old .  3.5  oz. 
Children  from  3  to  13  years.  .  7.0  oz. 

Hard  workers  13  to  60 14.0  oz. 

All  others  from  13  to  60 10.5  oz. 

Over  60  years  of  age 7.0  oz. 

This  represents  a  material  reduction  in 
the  total  bread  intake  of  the  Allies. 
The  reduction  may  prove  to  be  as 
large  as  25  per  cent.  Even  with  the 
great  scarcity  of  tonnage,  it  is  impera- 
tive to  transport  to  the  Allies  the 
amounts  of  wheat  necessary  to  pre- 
pare bread  in  the  amounts  required 
according  to  reduction  in  the  ration. 
Whosoever  wishes  to  aid  the  Germans 
this  summer  will  eat  bread  three  times 
a  day;  whosoever  wishes  to  aid  the 
Allies  will  give  them  bread  three  times 
a  day. 


WHAT  WE  POSSESS 

i~\  UR  situation  after  the  needs  of  the 
^^  allied  nations  for  wheat  during 
this  year  have  been  satisfied  is  easily 
presented  in  rounded  statistical  form. 
Subtracting  from  the  wheat  crop,  650,- 
000,000  bushels,  the  seed  require- 
ments and  the  amounts  that  have  been 
exported  and  are  committed  for  export 
to  the  Allies,  leaves  for  consumption  in 
the  United  States  about  400,000,000 
bushels,  as  against  a  normal  of  500,- 
000,000.  Our  population  is  105,- 
000,000  and  we  have  also  commit- 
ments for  flour  to  Cuba,  Panama, 
Mexico  and  Central  America  for  the 
support  of  essential  war  industries  that 
bring  it  up  to  at  least  108,000,000. 
This  corresponds  to  less  than  four 
bushels  of  wheat  per  capita  per  year. 

28 


WAR  BREAD  29 

Extracted  according  to  our  present 
milling  practice,  this  corresponds  to 
about  162  pounds  of  flour  for  the  year, 
or  13.5  pounds  per  month,  per  per- 
son. 

The  voluntary  conservation  meas- 
ures of  the  United  States  Food  Ad- 
ministration, introduced  in  the  fall  of 
1917,  if  realized,  would  enable  us  to 
fulfill  our  obligations  to  our  Allies 
and  carry  our  wheat  consumption 
through  the  year,  at  the  rate  of  not 
over  a  half  pound  of  flour  per  day. 
The  full  hopes  of  the  Food  Adminis- 
tration as  to  the  total  results  of  volun- 
tary conservation  have  not  been  real- 
ized. There  is  evidence  that  while 
perhaps  30  per  cent,  of  our  popula- 
tion have  conserved  wheat,  increased 
consumption  has  occurred  with  the 
remainder,  partly  as  an  expression  of 
increased  need  due  to  heavier  work, 
since  wheat  flour  was  almost  the 


30  WAR  BREAD 

cheapest  food;  and  partly  as  the  re- 
sult of  increased  wage,  which  in  any 
people  and  under  all  circumstances, 
leads  for  a  time  to  increased  food  con- 
sumption. It  is  not  possible  in  a  defi- 
nite manner  to  determine  what  the  con- 
sumption has  been  to  date  and  what  is 
left  for  the  balance  of  the  year  until 
the  new  crop  comes  in.  In  an  approx- 
imate manner,  however,  this  can  be 
stated,  and  it  must  be  stated  in  such  a 
way  as  to  present  a  safe  estimate  from 
the  standpoint  of  conservation. 

We  will  accept  as  the  figure  for  the 
normal  consumption  of  flour  216 
pounds  per  capita  per  year,  18  Ibs. 
per  month.  I  assume  that  during  the 
first  half  of  the  crop  year,  consump- 
tion has  occurred  at  this  rate,  corre- 
sponding to  108  pounds.  Available 
to  each  person  throughout  the  year 
were  162  pounds.  Subtracting  108 
from  162  pounds  leaves  54  pounds, 


WAR  BREAD  31 

which  represents  approximately  the 
amount  of  flour  available  for  each 
person  in  the  United  States  until  the 
new  flour  enters  the  market.  This 
corresponds  to  nine  pounds  per 
month,  or  one-half  of  the  normal  con- 
sumption. The  rye  flour  is  nearly 
exhausted.  There  is  a  certain  pro- 
duction of  barley  flour,  but  for  practi- 
cal purposes  we  must  accept  it  as  cor- 
rect to  say  that  nine  pounds  of  wheat 
flour  per  month  represents  during  the 
present  summer  the  maximum  amount 
of  flour  available  to  each  person  in  the 
United  States.  It  may  be  less. 

Our  normal  total  cereal  consump- 
tion was  somewhere  in  the  neighbour- 
hood of  22  pounds  per  month,  of 
which  approximately  eighteen  pounds 
was  in  the  form  of  wheat  flour,  leaving 
only  four  pounds  as  representing  the 
consumption  of  non-wheat  cereals. 
In  the  south,  large  numbers  of  people 


32  WAR  BREAD 

consume  less  than  ten  pounds  of  wheat 
flour  per  month  with  twelve  pounds  of 
corn.  We  have  many  people  in  the 
north  who  consume  practically  no 
other  cereal  than  wheat  flour.  Now, 
to  achieve  the  task  set  before  us,  that 
is  to  stretch  the  consumption  of  wheat 
flour  so  that  it  will  last  until  the  new 
crop,  each  person  must  limit  his  con- 
sumption to  at  least  nine  pounds  per 
month,  and  if  the  total  cereal  intake  is 
to  be  maintained  at  twenty-two  pounds, 
this  means  the  consumption  of  non- 
wheat  cereals  must  rise  to  thirteen 
pounds. 

Now  in  order  to  attain  a  certain  sav- 
ing, it  is  for  reasons  of  trade  and  in- 
dustry, as  well  as  for  reasons  of  psy- 
chology, demonstrated  by  human  ex- 
perience that  one  must  aim  at  a  higher 
retrenchment  than  for  the  minimal  fig- 
ure set  for  accomplishment.  For  the 
poorer  classes  in  our  cities  reduction 


WAR  BREAD  33 

in  flour  consumption  is  difficult.  The 
present  program  of  the  Food  Adminis- 
tration runs  to  the  effect  that  there 
shall  be  two  wheatless  days  per  week 
and  one  wheatless  meal  each  day.  In 
other  words,  of  the  twenty-one  meals, 
eleven  are  to  be  wheatless  and  ten  are 
to  contain  wheat.  A  certain  amount 
of  flour  must  be  used  in  the  kitchen  in 
the  preparation  of  sauces  and  gravies. 
The  standard  bread  is  a  preparation  of 
seventy-five  parts  of  wheat  flour  and 
twenty-five  parts  of  admixing  cereals. 
For  some  time  the  Food  Adminis- 
tration has  had  in  operation  a  fifty- 
fifty  rule,  that  one  could  purchase 
wheat  flour  only  by  purchasing  an 
equal  weight  of  other  cereal,  indicat- 
ing the  wish  of  the  authorities  that  we 
should  consume  non-wheat  cereals  in 
amounts  equal  to  wheat  flour.  To 
play  safe,  we  should  do  more  than  this. 
A  safe  rule  for  the  average  family 


34  WAR  BREAD 

would  be  to  limit  the  wheat  flour  con- 
sumed in  all  forms  to  six  pounds  per 
person  per  month. 

The  physical  article  bread  has  a 
psychological  value  in  the  diet.  To 
the  people  of  means,  bread  eating  is 
largely  a  habit,  as  is  well  illustrated  in 
the  munching  of  bread  in  public  eat- 
ing places  while  waiting  for  the  food 
that  has  been  ordered  to  be  served. 
But  with  the  working  classes  bread  has 
a  value  that  can  be  compared  to  the 
arch  of  the  keystone,  and  it  cannot 
safely  be  reduced  below  a  certain 
amount.  This  bread  may  be  mixed- 
flour  bread,  whole-wheat  bread  or 
white  bread;  but  it  must  be  bread  and 
it  cannot  be  replaced  by  cooked 
cereals.  The  figure  for  the  amount 
of  bread  to  be  regarded  as  indis- 
pensable depends  upon  custom,  view- 
point and  financial  means.  Leaving 
aside  the  first  two  as  outside  the 


WAR  BREAD  35 

domain  of  quantitative  evaluation,  the 
relation  of  the  purchasing  power  of 
a  class  to  its  bread  needs  may  be  ex- 
pressed in  the  statement  that  the  more 
limited  the  means  the  more  important 
the  bread  and  the  larger  the  amount 
demanded.  Bread  and  potato  are  all 
that  Germany  can  give  to  her  working 
classes  in  anything  like  normal 
amounts;  and  therefore  the  public  re- 
acts to  any  change  in  the  bread  ration 
with  almost  explosive  violence.  We 
have  more  meat,  fats,  sugar  and  veg- 
etables for  our  working  classes  than 
have  Great  Britain,  France  and  Italy. 
Therefore,  bread  is  more  important  to 
our  Allies  than  it  is  to  us.  To  our 
classes  of  means,  including  the  so- 
called  middle  class,  bread  is  largely  a 
dispensable  article  of  diet;  to  our 
working  classes,  bread  is  indispensa- 
ble. We  are  short  of  wheat.  There- 
fore, our  working  classes  and  those 


36  WAR  BREAD 

of  low  means  should  have  more  than 
their  numerical  share,  the  sedentary 
classes  less.  This  is  all  the  more  true 
since  wheat  flour  is  one  of  the  cheapest 
foods  on  the  market,  and  it  is  therefore 
at  this  time  the  duty  of  people  of 
means  to  forego  wheat.  Biscuit 
makers  who  for  years  have  turned 
out  little  else  than  wheat  crackers,  are 
now  producing  excellent  crackers  of 
other  cereals. 

Now,  if  our  consumption  of  non- 
wheat  cereals  represents  an  average  of 
four  pounds  per  month  per  person 
and  this  is  now  to  be  raised  to  at  least 
thirteen  pounds  per  month  per  person, 
we  must  give  a  figure  for  the  increased 
amounts  of  barley,  rice,  corn  and  oats 
that  must  be  consumed  in  order  to 
maintain  the  total  cereal  intake.  The 
previous  consumption  was  420,000,- 
000  pounds  per  month.  This  must 
rise  to  1,365,000,000  pounds  per 


WAR  BREAD  37 

month.  We  have  available  for  con- 
sumption in  the  shape  of  domestic  rice 
85,000,000  pounds  per  month.  Oat- 
meal and  rolled  oats  are  produced  in 
our  mills  at  the  rate  of  about  135,000,- 
000  pounds  per  mounth.  Corn  meal 
was  produced  at  the  rate  of  600,000,- 
000  pounds  per  month,  though  this 
represents  a  normal  inefficiency  and 
not  the  potential  output  at  all.  The 
total  of  these  is,  therefore,  820,000,- 
000  pounds  per  month  as  against  the 
need  of  1,365,000,000,  leaving  a  de- 
ficit of  545,000,000  pounds  of  sup- 
plementary cereals  per  month.  The 
amounts  of  barley,  buckwheat,  rye  and 
other  cereals  remaining  could  not  fur- 
nish over  200,000,000  pounds  per 
month.  To  cover  the  deficit  we  must 
either  import  rice,  produce  more  oat- 
meal and  rolled  oats,  turn  out  more 
corn  meal  and  hominy,  or  import 
wheat  from  Argentine  or  Australia. 


38  WAR  BREAD 

If  we  have  effected  material  conserva- 
tion in  wheat,  this  will  find  expression 
in  a  diminished  demand  for  supple- 
mentary cereals  in  certain  sections  of 
the  country,  and  have  the  effect  of 
lowering  the  figure  for  the  amount  of 
supplementary  cereals  required. 

The  crux  of  the  situation  does  not 
lie  in  the  supply  of  corn  and  oats,  but 
in  milling  facilities  and  transporta- 
tion. The  milling  of  corn  in  this 
country  is  inefficiently  done  from  the 
quantitative  point  of  view,  and  is 
capable  of  large  and  immediate  ex- 
pansion. Mills  not  primarily  built 
for  the  milling  of  corn  can  also  be 
adapted  to  this  end.  With  the  amount 
of  wheat  at  our  disposal,  our  milling 
facilities  are  only  partially  employed, 
and  although  considerable  reconstruc- 
tion and  adaptation  may  be  necessary, 
these  are  being  accomplished  and  the 
substitutes  are  flowing  freely  to  mar- 


WAR  BREAD  39 

ket.  Corn  more  than  once  saved  the 
early  settlers  of  New  England  from 
starvation,  and  was  during  the  civil 
war  the  chief  support  of  the  southern 
people. 

In  practical  terms,  therefore,  our 
situation,  when  the  needs  of  the  Allies 
have  been  filled,  may  be  stated  to  the 
effect  that  one-third  of  our  cereals  is 
in  the  state  of  wheat  flour  and  two- 
thirds  in  the  state  of  products  of  rice, 
oats,  corn  and  the  other  cereals;  and 
since  these  substitution  cereals  cannot 
be  combined  in  the  form  of  bread,  as 
the  term  is  usually  understood,  our 
people  will  have  bread  for  one-third 
of  their  meals  and  supplementary 
cereals,  cooked  or  baked  in  one  state 
or  another,  for  two-thirds  of  the  meals. 
This  state  of  affairs  must  certainly  en- 
dure until  September;  whether  it  will 
be  necessary  later,  depends  upon  the 
crop  of  1918  here  and  abroad. 


WHY  WE  ARE  LIMITED  IN 
WHEAT 

HPHE  scarcity  of  wheat  is  directly  the 
-*-  result  of  crop  failure,  since  the 
crop  of  1917  was  low.  The  crop  of 
1916  was  also  low,  but  this  was  com- 
pensated for  by  the  bumper  crop  of 
1915.  It  is  unusual  for  crop  failure 
to  occur  in  three  successive  years,  ex- 
cept as  the  expression  of  human  fac- 
tors. Nevertheless,  the  past  three 
years  have  each  given  a  subnormal 
crop  of  cotton,  and  we  must  realize 
that  the  year  of  1918  may  bring  the 
third  successive  low  yield  of  wheat. 

Viewed  broadly,  our  low  produc- 
tion of  bread-grains  is  the  expression 
of  our  type  of  agriculture.  It  repre- 
sents our  definition  of  yield  in  terms  of 

40 


WAR  BREAD  41 

men  rather  than  in  terms  of  acreage; 
and  also  the  tendency  of  our  agricul- 
tural processes  to  revolve  about  animal 
husbandry.  On  superficial  contempla- 
tion, it  seems  strange  that  we  should 
have  approached  the  limit  in  our  per 
capita  production  of  bread-grains. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  United  States 
had  ceased  to  be  an  exporter  of  bread- 
grains;  we  had  been  scarcely  more 
than  self-supporting;  we  were  inevit- 
ably becoming  an  importer,  relying 
upon  Canada  for  a  portion  of  our  sup- 
plies. Of  our  total  land  surface  of 
over  1,903,000,000  acres,  about  900,- 
000,000  are  at  present  defined  as  farm 
area,  of  which  about  500,000,000  are 
improved,  that  is,  under  cultivation 
in  the  broad  sense  of  the  term.  The 
largest  acreage  ever  planted  to  bread- 
grains  was  in  1915,  nearly  70,000,000 
acres,  less  than  one-seventh  of  the  im- 
proved land. 


42  WAR  BREAD 

The  prospective  acreage  in  wheat, 
barley  and  rye  for  the  year  1918  may 
be  estimated  to  be  in  the  neighbour- 
hood of  75,000,000  acres,  and  repre- 
sents, apparently,  the  maximum  that 
can  be  obtained  under  present  condi- 
tions of  cultivation  of  the  soil.  This 
limitation  is  an  expression  partly  of 
the  operation  of  the  law  of  diminishing 
returns  as  applied  to  the  raising  of  the 
cereals  themselves,  partly  the  expres- 
sion of  competition  with  other  crops 
and  with  animal  husbandry.  There 
is  a  great  deal  of  discussion  of  the 
planting  of  the  marginal  area,  whether 
this  be  applied  to  acres  in  individual 
farms  or  to  areas  in  the  different 
zones.  Of  course,  this  could  be  ac- 
complished if  the  yield  per  acre  could 
be  maintained  to  the  average.  But 
this  could  be  expected  only  if  we  pos- 
sessed abundant  farm  labour,  ade- 
quate supplies  of  fertilizer  and  un- 


WAR  BREAD  43 

limited  implements.  These  we  have 
not,  and  if  we  did  possess  them,  we 
would  not  cultivate  the  marginal  area. 
We  would  practise  instead  intensive 
cultivation,  and  upon  a  smaller  acre- 
age devoted  to  bread-grains,  raise 
double  the  yield  per  acre  that  is  at- 
tained with  the  present  practices. 

There  are  four  main  areas  devoted 
to  the  raising  of  bread-grains.  The 
first  is  east  of  the  Mississippi,  running 
across  the  central  section,  as  far  north 
as  southern  Michigan  and  New  York. 
This  area  produces  winter  wheat 
largely,  is  reliable  in  yield,  and  from 
the  purely  rotation  point  of  view, 
capable  of  considerable  expansion  in 
acreage.  The  second  area  is  the 
southwestern  belt,  including  Missouri, 
southern  Nebraska,  Kansas,  Okla- 
homa and  the  contiguous  areas  of 
Texas  and  Colorado.  This  is  also 
a  winter  wheat  belt,  but  exposed  to 


44  WAR  BREAD 

unfavourable  climatic  conditions, 
winter  killing  and  drouth  being  fre- 
quent. The  third  area  is  the  north- 
western spring  wheat  belt,  includ- 
ing the  country  from  the  Mississippi 
to  the  Rocky  Mountains,  a  direct  con- 
tinuation of  the  Canadian  spring 
wheat  belt.  This  is  also  a  section  of 
unfortunate  climatic  conditions;  the 
seeding  is  often  so  greatly  delayed  by 
late  spring  that  the  farmer  has  diffi- 
culties in  preparing  his  soil  and  the 
crop  barely  time  to  mature  before 
frost,  and  the  area  is  also  liable  to 
excess  or  deficiency  in  rainfall.  The 
last  area  is  the  Pacific  belt,  including 
in  this  all  the  states  west  of  the  Rocky 
Mountain  Divide.  California  was 
once  a  prolific  producer  of  wheat,  but 
exhausted  her  soil,  through  repeated 
cultivation  without  rotation.  The 
northern  Pacific  states  yield  richly  in 
the  bread-grains,  and  are  relatively 


WAR  BREAD  45 

free  of  untoward  climatic  influences. 
It  is  an  unfortunate  fact  that  those 
areas  that  have  statistically  the  best 
climatic  influences  have  the  least  pos- 
sibility of  expansion.  One  must  not 
make  an  estimate  of  acreage  without  at 
the  same  time  having  before  one  the 
figures  of  planting  and  of  harvesting, 
with  the  records  of  abandonment. 

Following  upon  a  governmental  sur- 
vey, the  acreage  of  winter  wheat  rec- 
ommended in  the  fall  year  of  1917 
was  over  47,000,000  acres.  Owing  to 
drouth  in  the  southwest,  the  seeding 
according  to  this  recommendation  was 
not  fully  accomplished,  but  over  42,- 
000,000  were  secured.  The  condi- 
tion of  the  wheat  on  the  first  of  Decem- 
ber was  below  eighty  per  cent.,  the 
lowest  in  years.  During  the  winter 
the  condition  has  been  considerably 
improved,  owing  to  protection  by  an 
abundance  of  snow.  What  the  future 


46  WAR  BREAD 

holds  in  rainfall,  drouth,  frost  or  para- 
sitic diseases  cannot  be  foreseen. 
The  acreage  of  spring  wheat  that  will 
probably  be  attained  may  be  estimated 
conservatively  at  20,000,000.  If  from 
this  combined  acreage,  plus  rye  and 
barley,  we  secure  a  yield  that  is 
large  as  an  expression  of  favourable 
climatic  conditions,  with  a  low  ratio 
for  abandonment  and  a  high  figure 
for  yield  per  acre,  the  bread-grain 
crop  of  1916  may  represent  1,100,- 
000,000  bushels.  On  the  other  hand, 
with  unfavourable  conditions  in  tem- 
perature, rainfall  or  parasitic  dis- 
eases, the  yield  may  fall  as  low  as 
700,000,000  bushels,  without  exceed- 
ing the  common  measure  of  unfavour- 
able results  in  the  past.  If  we  should 
secure  a  billion  bushels,  this  would 
probably  mean  a  large  crop  of  spring 
wheat  for  Canada,  where  it  is  hoped 


WAR  BREAD  47 

15,000,000  acres  will  be  planted,  and 
under  these  circumstances  we  and  our 
Allies  would  have  little  concern  over 
bread-grains  after  the  first  of  Septem- 
ber. If,  however,  we  secure  a  yield 
as  low  as  700,000,000  bushels,  this 
would  probably  mean  also  a  low 
spring  wheat  yield  in  Canada,  and  we 
and  our  Allies  would  face  after  the 
first  of  September  a  continuation  of 
the  same  situation  of  scarcity  and 
stringency  that  now  confronts  us.  It 
is  imperative  that  we  place  in  opera- 
tion measures  of  conservation  that  will 
continue  over  into  the  coming  year 
and  they  must  be  designed  to  that  end, 
since  that  is  the  only  procedure  of 
safety.  With  the  continuation  of  the 
war  into  another  year,  that  is,  with  the 
necessity  of  planting  a  war  crop  for 
the  year  1919,  we  would  face  the  same 
situation  as  this  year,  except  that 


48  WAR  BREAD 

labour  would  be  still  scarcer,  machin- 
ery more  depleted  and  fertilizer  still 
less  available. 

The  only  possible  deviation  from 
the  program  as  set  forth  would  be  a 
violent  dislocation  of  agriculture,  with 
heavy  reduction  in  the  planting  of  all 
feed  crops,  especially  corn  and  oats, 
attended  by  consequent  reduction  in 
the  number  of  domesticated  animals. 
This,  which  has  already  been  made 
necessary  in  every  European  country 
at  war,  has  not  yet  become  necessary 
here.  If  the  price  of  wheat  were  to 
be  fixed  very  high,  say  at  four  dollars 
per  bushel,  wheat  would  be  planted  to 
the  disastrous  neglect  of  other  crops 
and  of  domesticated  animals.  Wheat 
would  be  secured,  but  the  state  would 
have  to  pay  for  bread  for  a  large  sec- 
tion of  the  people.  If  we  have  wheat 
failure  in  1918,  the  sole  escape  from 
violent  dislocation  of  agricultural 


WAR  BREAD  49 

practices  in  1919  would  lie  in  the  im- 
portation of  bread-grains  from  India, 
Argentine  and  Australia,  made  possi- 
ble by  the  conquest  of  ship-building 
and  depth-bombing  over  the  opera- 
tions of  the  submarine.  Our  agricul- 
ture, like  our  diet,  operates  with  or 
against  the  submarine. 


FOOD  VALUE  OF  THE 
DIFFERENT  GRAINS 

THE  substitution  of  oats,  corn,  rice 
and  other  cereals  for  bread-grains 
rests  upon  sound  physiological  consid- 
eration. Under  bread-grains,  we  in- 
clude in  the  order  of  their  importance 
from  the  standpoint  of  bread-making, 
wheat  and  rye.  Barley,  corn,  oats, 
and  rice  are  not  technically  regarded 
as  bread-grains  at  all,  because  yeast- 
leavened  bread  cannot  be  prepared 
from  them.  On  analysis,  these  grains 
are  found  to  be  similar  in  composi- 
tion, whether  analysed  whole  or  after 
being  processed  into  flour.  With  dif- 
ferent varieties  and  in  different  sea- 
sons, they  contain  in  different  coun- 
tries from  eight  to  twelve  per  cent,  of 

50 


WAR  BREAD  51 

protein,  with  the  exception  of  rice  that 
may  be  as  low  as  six  per  cent.,  and 
oats  that  may  run  over  fifteen.  With 
comparable  water  content,  the  carbo- 
hydrate varies  from  sixty-five  to 
seventy  per  cent.,  the  fat  from  one  to 
two  per  cent.,  with  the  exception  of 
oats  which  may  be  as  high  as  six  per 
cent. 

The  flour  of  any  one  is  worth  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  1600  calories  per 
pound,  oatmeal  being  the  highest.  In  a 
mixed  diet  where  the  cereals  represent 
about  one-third  of  the  foodstuffs,  the 
variations  are  entirely  negligible,  bar- 
ley being  the  lowest  and  oat-meal  the 
highest  in  food  value.  When  fed  in  a 
mixed  diet  to  animals,  these  grains  are 
of  equal  value.  When  animals  are 
fed  upon  one  grain  alone,  including 
leaves  and  stalks,  wheat  is,  appar- 
ently, the  poorest  of  the  grains.  In 
mineral  content,  they  are  of  approx- 


52  WAR  BREAD 

imately  equal  value.  The  proteins  of 
all  these  grains  are  to  be  regarded  as 
unbalanced  and  in  equal  measure, 
though  this  again  is  a  question  of  no 
importance  in  a  mixed  diet. 

These  grains  are  all  equally  digest- 
ible, for  practical  purposes.  Rice  is 
perhaps  rather  more  digestible  than 
corn  and  oats,  possibly  on  account  of 
the  lower  fat  content;  but  the  degree 
of  absorption  of  protein,  fat  and  car- 
bohydate  is  practically  identical  in  all. 
The  digestibility  of  the  different 
grains  apparently  holds  for  all  ages, 
being  largely  an  expression  of  proper 
cooking.  Corn  in  occasional  individ- 
uals gives  rise  to  mild  attacks  of  hives. 
The  common  opinion  that  corn  and 
oats  are  heating  is  a  vulgar  error. 

Certain  individuals  would  seem  to 
be  concerned  over  the  propriety  of  re- 
duction of  wheat  flour  in  the  ration  of 
children  and  invalids,  for  whom 


WAR  BREAD  53 

toasted  wheat  bread  has  long  been 
regarded  as  a  most  appropriate  cer- 
eal. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  in  the  dietary 
of  the  sick,  rice  and  barley  have  long 
enjoyed  a  particularly  high  reputa- 
tion. In  the  compounded  infant 
foods,  barley  is  the  flour  commonly 
employed  and  not  wheat;  and  pearl 
barley  is  indeed  put  to  scarcely  any 
other  use  than  for  the  sick.  In  truth, 
the  method  of  preparation  and  the 
thoroughness  of  the  cooking  are  the 
essential  points  and  not  the  kind  of 
cereal.  In  the  dieting  of  delicate 
children  and  invalids,  variety  is  al- 
most as  important  as  digestibility,  and 
the  wheat  conservation  program  of  the 
United  States  Food  Administration 
places  no  limitation  upon  the  use  of 
wheat  flour  in  this  way. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  must  be  clearly 
realized  that  most  of  the  preference 


54  WAR  BREAD 

for  wheat  flour  is  notional  and  not 
digestive.  Certainly  with  adults  who 
are  leading  their  usual  lives,  it  will 
be  very  rarely  found  that  toleration 
for  wheat  bread  co-exists  with  inabil- 
ity to  digest  the  other  cereals.  We 
may  accept  it  as  a  rule  that  the  man 
or  woman  who  wishes  now  to  insist  on 
the  customary  use  of  wheat  flour  is 
either  a  crank  or  a  slacker. 

The  reputation  enjoyed  in  the  Cau- 
casian world  by  wheat  pre-eminently, 
and  to  a  lesser  extent  by  rye,  rests 
upon  the  physical  properties  of  the 
protein.  Wheat  contains  a  substance 
called  gluten.  Rye  contains  a  similar 
substance  to  a  lesser  extent.  We  will 
regard  them  for  the  purpose  of  discus- 
sion as  identical.  Gluten  is  a  tough, 
elastic,  tenacious  substance,  which  di- 
lates with  air  spaces  when  bread  is 
raised  with  yeast,  precisely  as  soap 
bubbles  are  formed  when  air  is  blown 


WAR  BREAD  55 

into  soap  suds.  When  yeast  acts  in  a 
dough  of  corn,  rice  or  oats  there  is  no 
cohesion  in  the  mass,  there  will  be  lit- 
tle increase  in  volume,  and  when  it  is 
baked  the  product  is  of  granular  tex- 
ture. When  yeast  acts  in  wheat-flour 
dough  the  mass  rises,  the  gluten 
stretches  and  the  entire  loaf  dilates. 
When  the  bread  is  baked  the  gluten  is 
coagulated,  and  in  this  condition  holds 
up  the  porous,  airy  structure  of  the 
bread,  precisely  as  the  white-of-egg 
holds  up  the  structure  of  sponge  cake. 
When  surrounded  by  a  proper  crust 
so  that  the  moisture  is  retained,  the 
bread  keeps  for  days  its  attractive 
qualities.  It  is  easy  to  transport,  not 
prone  to  decomposition,  and  is  in 
every  way  a  durable  and,  therefore, 
an  attractive  article  of  food.  Rice, 
oats  and  corn  cannot  be  used  to  pre- 
pare bread  of  this  type.  They  form 
cakes,  biscuits,  wafers  or  pones,  like 


56  WAR  BREAD 

corn  bread,  which  is  not  bread  at  all, 
breaks  easily,  dries  out,  cannot  be 
transported,  and  must  be  consumed 
within  a  few  hours  after  being  pre- 
pared. Baked  with  fats  and  sugar, 
rice,  corn  meal,  and  oatmeal  can  be 
used  to  form  cakes  of  various  kinds 
that  are  durable,  but  these  are  not 
bread. 

Bread  is  the  only  cereal  food  prod- 
uct that  can  be  prepared  on  a  large 
scale  by  commercial  bakers  and  dis- 
tributed without  containers.  The  glu- 
ten of  wheat  stands  alone  in  its  qual- 
ities in  this  respect.  It  is  possible  to 
bake  a  straight  rye  bread,  although  it 
will  be  soggy  rather  than  light  and 
this  is  rarely  done,  even  in  rye-eating 
countries.  It  is  not  possible  to  bake 
a  straight  barley  bread,  but  it  is  pos- 
sible to  combine  it  with  equal  parts  of 
rye  or  wheat.  On  the  Continent  the 
customary  rye  breads  usually  contain 


WAR  BREAD  57 

thirty  parts  of  wheat,  while  the  bread 
of  the  better  classes  contains  seventy 
parts  of  wheat  and  thirty  parts  of  rye. 
Rarely  do  rye  breads  in  the  United 
States  contain  over  thirty  parts  of 
rye. 

The  value  of  the  bread-grains  lies, 
therefore,  in  the  efficiency  of  prepar- 
ation, in  the  transportability  of  the 
product  and  in  the  keeping  qualities. 
Since  bread  can  be  cut  into  slices  it 
lends  itself  to  convenience  in  house- 
hold service. 

We  rarely  eat  bread  without  butter 
or  fruit,  yet  we  do  not  realize  how  the 
consumption  of  breads  depends  upon 
the  materials  spread  upon  it.  The 
German  people  realized  this  depend- 
ence, on  a  nation-wide  scale,  during 
the  past  two  years.  With  a  very  low 
fat  ration  and  fruit  and  sugar  scarce, 
the  need  of  some  spreading  material 
was  so  keenly  felt  by  the  masses  that 


58  WAR  BREAD 

the  government  devised  and  fabricated 
a  jam  composed  largely  of  turnips, 
merely  to  supply  something  that  could 
be  spread  upon  the  bread. 

Races  other  than  Caucausian  have 
usually  centred  their  nutrition  around 
other  cereals  than  wheat,  notably 
around  rice.  The  nutrition  of  Japan 
centres  around  the  soya  bean  and 
rice;  that  of  the  Chinese  around  rice, 
while  corn  has  gradually  forged  for- 
ward in  areas  where  it  is  particularly 
adapted  to  cultivation. 

Barley  was  once  widely  used  on  the 
European  Continent.  It  was  replaced 
by  rye,  that  has  gradually  given  way 
to  wheat,  though  rye  is  still  the  staple 
bread  of  Russia,  Austria,  Germany 
and  the  Scandinavian  countries.  Oat- 
meal in  Scotland  has  yielded  to  wheat 
within  the  last  century.  In  this  coun- 
try, despite  the  fact  that  our  crops  of 
corn  and  oats  are  more  readily  main- 


WAR  BREAD  59 

tained,  the  diet  in  North  America  has 
centred  around  wheat,  though  in  the 
south  wheat  shares  honours  with  rice 
and  maize.  Many  elements  enter  into 
the  choice:  price,  household  conven- 
ience, taste,  appearance,  labour,  fuel, 
etc. 

Bread,  whether  of  wheat  or  rye,  can 
be  baked  in  public  establishments  and 
delivered  to  the  house,  while  corn,  oat- 
meal and  rice  must  be  prepared  in  the 
home,  usually  for  a  single  meal,  bread 
being  consumed  by  preference  upon 
the  second  or  third  day.  Another  use 
of  wheat  is  in  the  form  of  quick-rising 
biscuit,  prepared  with  baking  powder, 
which  gives  a  hot  table  bread  in  short 
time  and  with  little  labour;  though 
perhaps  from  the  standpoint  of  health, 
the  practice  is  not  to  be  recommended, 
it  has  been  widely  adopted  on  account 
of  ease  and  convenience.  Wheat 
lends  itself  better  than  any  other 


60  WAR  BREAD 

cereal  to  the  preparation  of  cakes,  pas- 
tries and  desserts,  and  is  thus  the  flour 
of  luxury  even  in  those  countries 
where  rye  is  the  bread  of  necessity. 

Our  predilection  for  wheat  is  an  ex- 
pression of  our  prosperity,  of  our  de- 
sire to  consume  those  foods  that  pos- 
sess the  greatest  attraction  from  the 
standpoint  of  appearance  and  taste. 
It  has  no  physiological  basis  and  must 
be  judged  in  war-time  for  exactly  what 
it  is ; — an  expression  of  taste  and  con- 
venience rather  than  an  expression  of 
utility. 

Many  Americans,  on  realization  of 
the  situation,  have  felt  it  to  be  their 
part  to  eschew  the  use  of  wheat  until 
the  new  harvest.  The  large  hotels  of 
the  country  have  taken  the  pledge  to 
serve  no  wheat  from  the  1917  crop. 
To  live  for  three  months  without  wheat 
is  not  a  difficult  thing  to  do.  Cer- 
tainly not  in  the  summer  months,  with 


WAR  BREAD  61 

our  profusion  of  vegetables  and 
fruits.  If  one  fourth  of  our  people 
would  do  this,  the  saving  in  wheat 
would  provide  a  priceless  insurance 
fund  for  the  United  States  Food  Ad- 
ministration. 


WAYS  OF  STRETCHING 
WHEAT 

IV  THEN  the  wheat  flour  of  a  nation 
"  runs  short  there  are  three  ways 
in  which  adaptation  may  be  accom- 
plished:— direct  substitution,  the  use 
of  mixed  flours,  and  higher  extraction 
of  the  wheat  in  milling.  The  method 
any  particular  people  will  adopt  will 
be  determined  in  part  upon  their  pre- 
vious customs.  Factors  of  trade  and 
transportation  also  exert  an  influence, 
as  well  as  the  state  of  supplies  in  other 
foodstuffs.  In  the  nations  at  war  all 
three  methods  have  been  employed. 

Direct  substitution  offers  the  most 
obvious  way  of  saving  wheat.  The 
average  consumption  of  wheat  flour  in 
this  country  is  18  Ibs.  per  person  per 

62 


WAR  BREAD  63 

month.  The  housewife  arbitrarily 
reduces  her  purchase  of  flour  to  6  Ibs. 
per  month  for  each  member  of  the 
family  and  limits  the  bread,  cakes,  and 
desserts  she  prepares,  and  the  use  of 
flour  in  sauces  and  gravies,  to  the  fixed 
amount.  At  the  same  time  she  in- 
creases her  purchases  of  rice,  barley, 
cornmeal,  hominy,  oatmeal  and  other 
cereals  to  fourteen  pounds  per  month, 
and  serves  them  instead.  This  is  the 
most  direct  method  of  saving  wheat; 
it  is  from  many  points  of  view  the 
most  satisfactory,  and  leads  directly 
to  the  specified  saving.  Where  the 
household  purchases  bread  the  house- 
wife knows  that  four  pounds  of  bread 
represents  three  pounds  of  flour.  All 
purchases  of  wheaten  crackers,  pies, 
pastries,  cakes  and  like  articles  must, 
of  course,  also  be  counted  in.  From 
the  standpoint  of  many  families,  it  will 
represent  the  most  satisfactory  solu- 


64  WAR  BREAD 

tion  of  the  problem  to  use  bread  made 
of  standard  wheat  flour  limited  to  the 
specified  amount,  and  serve  the  substi- 
tution cereals  as  separate  dishes. 

In  the  present  state  of  the  wheat 
stocks  in  this  country,  it  would  prob- 
ably meet  the  conservation  program 
of  the  Food  Administration  to  have  the 
purchase  of  flour  per  month  limited  to 
eight  pounds  per  person;  six  pounds 
would  be  safer.  To  maintain  the 
usual  cereal  intake,  some  fourteen 
pounds  of  substitution  cereals  would 
be  required  per  month  per  person. 
There  is  a  great  deal  to  be  said  in 
favour  of  having  normal  bread,  even 
though  we  have  much  less  of  it.  How 
the  housewife  serves  the  bread  and 
substitution  cereals  would  depend 
upon  the  tastes  of  the  family  and  the 
condition  of  her  larder.  She  might 
elect  to  serve  bread  only  at  one  meal 
of  the  day,  the  heavy  meal,  serving 


WAR  BREAD  65 

substitute  cereals  upon  the  other  two 
meals.  She  might  elect  to  dole  out  a 
twenty-first  part  of  the  bread  ration  for 
the  week  with  each  one  of  the  meals, 
and  serve  the  other  cereals  at  all 
meals.  All  this  is  immaterial,  so  long 
as  the  amount  of  flour  purchased 
directly  and  indirectly  is  held  to  the 
denominated  figure,  six  pounds. 

The  practical  concern  to  the  house- 
wife lies  in  the  preparation  of  the  dif- 
ferent cereals.  The  use  of  large 
amounts  of  substitution  cereals  de- 
pends upon  the  conditions  in  the  larder 
outside  of  cereals.  Anglo-Saxons  do 
not  relish  the  direct  consumption  of 
boiled  cereals.  Rice  is  in  itself  quite 
tasteless  and  requires  the  presence  of 
flavouring  substances,  such  as  curry, 
meats  or  fats;  brown  rice  has  a  better 
flavour  than  polished  rice.  Oatmeal 
appeals  to  few  people  unless  eaten 
with  milk  arid  sugar.  The  same  is  to 


66  WAR  BREAD 

be  said  of  cornmeal  mush,  while  fried 
cornmeal  and  hominy  are  usually 
consumed  with  syrup  or  with  meats. 
All  cereals  are  relished  with  fruits. 
Fortunately  for  us,  we  possess  the 
sugar,  fruits,  meats,  fats  and  dairy 
products  necessary  to  enable  the  house- 
wife to  prepare  rice,  cornmeal,  hom- 
iny, barley,  oatmeal  and  other  cereals 
in  an  infinite  variety  of  ways.  It  is 
precisely  in  the  possession  of  these 
foodstuffs,  that  make  the  use  of  sub- 
stitution cereals  easy,  that  the  Ameri- 
can housewife  occupies  the  position  of 
advantage  over  the  women  of  the  Al- 
lies, who  are  short  of  fruits,  sugar, 
dairy  products,  meats  and  fats.  Suc- 
cess in  the  use  of  substitution  cereals 
in  this  country  is  merely  a  question  of 
desire.  The  common  degree  of  culi- 
nary skill  and  household  ingenuity 
will  enable  any  woman  to  restrict  the 
consumption  of  flour  in  her  family  to 


WAR  BREAD  67 

six  pounds  per  person  per  month,  and 
to  serve  substitution  cereals  in  such 
ways  as  to  evoke  the  satisfaction  both 
of  the  adults  and  children.  A  bung- 
ling housewife  is  a  pro-German  influ- 
ence, in  fact  if  not  in  intention. 

The  direct  use  of  substitution 
cereals  is  most  easy  to  people  of  means 
and  to  those  living  in  the  country  and 
in  towns  and  small  cities,  since  they 
have  access  to  the  adjuncts  that  make 
these  cereals  acceptable.  The  people 
living  in  the  congested  sections  of 
large  cities  would  find  such  a  mode  of 
subsistence  onerous  and  expensive, 
and  since  they  cannot  be  asked  to  carry 
out  the  full  program,  the  more  strict 
observance  is  imposed  upon  the  rest  of 
us,  in  whose  power  it  lies  to  live  on  the 
least  wheat,  even  with  no  wheat. 

For  those  who  live  in  public  eating 
houses,  this  method  of  direct  substitu- 
tion is  not  so  feasible.  Oatmeal, 


68  WAR  BREAD 

cornmeal,  hominy  and  rice  are  often 
badly  prepared  and  unattractively 
served  in  public  houses.  These 
cereals  require  thorough  cooking  and 
are  best  prepared  in  small  amounts. 
The  easy  thing  for  public  eating  places 
is  to  serve  bread  with  meats  and  veg- 
etables. Anyone  who  attempts  to 
maintain  a  vegetarian  or  cereal  diet  in 
a  public  eating  place  will  find  the 
practice  difficult.  Thus  the  world 
over  the  saving  of  wheat  is  hardest  in 
public  eating  places.  The  most  effec- 
tive method  is  to  prohibit  the  serving 
of  crackers  and  the  like  and  limit  the 
permissible  portion  of  bread  to  two 
ounces. 

The  second  method  is  the  use  of 
mixed  flours,  the  dilution  of  wheat 
flour  with  other  cereals.  European 
nations  have  now  accumulated  expe- 
riences in  the  admixing  of  flours  upon 
such  a  large  scale  that  we  may  accept 


WAR  BREAD  69 

their  findings  as  conclusive.  Stand- 
ard bread  of  normal  characteristics 
cannot  be  prepared  commercially  with 
less  than  70  parts  of  wheat  flour,  ex- 
cept in  the  case  of  rye,  where  a  good 
half-and-half  bread  can  be  prepared. 
With  barley,  oatmeal,  cornmeal,  rice, 
potato  and  other  diluting  flours,  70 
parts  of  wheat  flour  are  required  to  30 
parts  of  substitution  flour  for  the  sim- 
ple reason  that  this  is  the  minimum 
amount  of  wheat  furnishing  the  gluten 
necessary  to  produce  a  bread  of  stand- 
ard characteristics. 

The  best  mixed-flour  bread  is  pre- 
pared from  flour  of  standard  extrac- 
tion. For  practical  purposes  it  does 
not  make  much  difference  what  the  di- 
luting flour  is.  If  the  substitution 
flours  do  not  cook  as  rapidly  as  wheat 
flour,  which  is  true  of  cornmeal  and 
oatmeal,  it  is  advantageous  to  have 
them  pre-cooked.  Thus,  in  the  house- 


70  WAR  BREAD 

hold,  the  best  method  of  making 
mixed-flour  bread  of  oatmeal,  rice  or 
corn-meal  is  to  cook  these  cereals, 
mash  them  thoroughly  and  work  them 
into  the  dough.  In  the  case  of  pota- 
toes, cooking  is  always  advantagous. 
Commercial  bakers,  of  course,  cannot 
proceed  thus.  They  must  adapt  the 
processes  of  baking  to  the  characteris- 
tics of  the  particular  mixture,  and 
they  have  learned  in  Europe  to  pro- 
duce fair  breads  upon  a  commercial 
scale.  Thirty  per  cent,  of  cornmeal  is 
too  high;  twenty  should  not  be  ex- 
ceeded. Fifty  per  cent,  of  rye,  thirty 
per  cent,  of  barley,  twenty-five  of  rice 
and  oatmeal  and  twenty  per  cent,  of 
corn  represent  proportions  that  can  be 
employed  by  commercial  bakers  or  in 
the  household  with  perfect  satisfac- 
tion. Expert  housewives  can  use 
larger  admixtures  with  small  batches. 
Success  is  modified  by  the  extrac- 


WAR  BREAD  71 

tion  of  the  diluting  flours.  Barley 
should  be  milled  to  60  per  cent.,  rye  to 
70  per  cent.;  degerminated  cornmeal 
makes  the  best-looking  loaf,  but  whole 
corn  meal  is  satisfactory. 

These  breads  are  usually  not  as 
light  and  fine  in  texture  as  straight 
wheat  breads.  They  do  not  remain 
moist  quite  as  long;  they  do  not  toast 
as  perfectly,  and  they  may  present  a 
slight  taste  of  the  diluting  grain.  If 
barley  flour  is  extracted  to  70  per 
cent.,  it  lends  a  taste  to  the  bread  con- 
taining it;  if  extracted  to  60  per  cent., 
this  is  not  the  case.  Rice  tends  to  give 
a  pastry-like  texture  if  used  in  large 
amounts.  Cornmeal  tends  to  give  a 
granular  quality  to  the  bread  contain- 
ing it.  Potato  bread,  when  made  un- 
der careful  supervision,  is  a  very  good 
article;  but  applied  to  commercial 
baking  the  bread  is  difficult  of  control. 
The  writer  has  eaten  much  potato 


72  WAR  BREAD 

bread  in  Germany,  containing  all  the 
way  from  10  to  30  per  cent,  of  potato, 
prepared  both  with  wheat  and  rye 
flour,  and  has  seen  few  good  breads 
turned  out  upon  a  commercial  scale. 
Ten  to  fifteen  per  cent,  of  potato  can 
be  added  to  bread  in  household  bak- 
ing without  the  slightest  sign  in  the  fin- 
ished product. 

Of  course,  the  technique  of  baking 
must  be  modified,  both  in  the  bakery 
and  in  the  household,  in  accordance 
with  the  particular  ingredients  in- 
volved. When  one  uses  wheat  flour 
to  70  per  cent,  of  the  mass,  one  must 
reduce  the  period  of  fermentation.  It 
may  be  found  that  a  slightly  higher  or 
lower  temperature  during  the  period 
of  fermentation  is  advantageous. 
The  baker  and  the  housewife  will  find 
a  higher  or  lower  temperature  in  bak- 
ing advantageous  to  produce  breads 
best  adapted  to  the  taste  of  the  family 


WAR  BREAD  73 

and  the  trade.  Here  again  success 
depends  upon  desire.  The  baker  who 
wants  to  turn  out  a  mixed  bread  con- 
taining eighty  or  even  seventy  parts  of 
wheat  flour,  such  as  the  present  stand- 
ard flour  of  this  country,  and  twenty 
or  thirty  parts  of  diluting  flours  can 
produce  bread  of  normal  appearances 
and  standard  qualities. 

Mixed-flour  bread  represents  the 
best  method  of  stretching  wheat  in  the 
subsistence  of  the  inhabitants  of  the 
congested  area  of  our  large  cities,  in- 
deed for  the  very  poor  it  may  be  the 
only  practicable  method. 

Recent  additions  to  the  list  of  wheat- 
flour  substitutes  are  flours  of  peanut, 
banana,  sweet  potato,  sorghum  grains 
and  others.  These  are  good  products, 
but  they  find  their  best  use  not  in 
yeast-risen  breads  but  rather  in  quick 
breads,  cakes  and  similar  prepar- 
ations. 


74  WAR  BREAD 

The  third  method  is  higher  extrac- 
tion of  flour.  By  extraction,  ex- 
pressed in  percentage,  we  mean  weight 
of  flour  obtained  from  the  unit  weight 
of  cleaned  grains.  The  pre-war  ex- 
traction in  this  country  was  70  to  72 
per  cent.;  that  is,  one  hundred  weight 
of  cleaned  wheat  produced  seventy  or 
seventy-two  pounds  of  flour  in  total. 
This  flour  was  contained  in  several 
trade  grades.  The  finest  patent  flour 
represented  about  56  per  cent,  extrac- 
tion. Then  there  were  bakers'  patents 
and  straight  flours.  The  sum  of  these 
equaled  70-72  per  cent.  We  have 
abolished  these  gradings  of  flour  and 
our  mills  now  produce  a  standard  flour 
of  uniform  extraction,  practically  75 
per  cent,  upon  the  American  scale. 
In  order  to  understand  the  advantages 
and  disadvantages  of  higher  milling, 
it  is  necessary  to  enter  a  little  into  the 


WAR  BREAD  75 

structure  of  wheat  and  the  processes 
of  milling. 

Wheat  is  composed  of  three  parts; 
the  endosperm,  which  is  the  main  body 
of  the  berry;  the  germ;  the  hull  or 
coating.  Our  standard  wheat  flour 
contains  only  the  endosperm  and  rep- 
resents practically  a  75  per  cent,  ex- 
traction. The  remaining  25  per  cent, 
is  known  in  the  trade  as  grain  offal  or 
mill-feed,  and  is  used  largely  as  a  con- 
centrated food  for  live  stock,  being 
prized  in  the  feeding  of  dairy  cattle. 
This  fraction  of  grain  offal  contains  a 
number  of  over-lapping  sub-fractions, 
which  are  known  in  the  trade  as  red- 
dog,  shorts,  middlings,  and  bran.  A 
portion  of  the  red-dog  is  contained  in 
the  lowest  grade  of  straight  flour.  It 
is  possible  to  separate  roughly  the 
grain  offal  into  two  parts ;  one  contain- 
ing the  germ  and  the  finer  offal,  and 


76  WAR  BREAD 

the  other  containing  the  coarser  offals, 
largely  bran.  In  comparing  Ameri- 
can and  European  extractions,  the 
water  content  of  flours  must  be  kept  in 
mind.  Here  the  flour  contains  about 
13  per  cent,  of  water,  in  Europe 
higher  water  content  is  permitted,  17 
per  cent,  being  common.  In  other 
words,  our  75  per  cent,  extraction  cor- 
responds to  a  78  per  cent,  extraction  in 
Europe. 

Standard  wheat  can  be  extracted  to 
about  78  per  cent,  without  inclusion 
of  the  germ,  but  with  inclusion  of 
some  of  the  red-dog.  The  germ  frac- 
tion will  be  found  in  the  next  10  per 
cent.,  the  material  between  the  78  per 
cent,  and  88  per  cent.  The  germ  it- 
self is  probably  not  over  2  per  cent, 
of  the  weight  of  the  grain,  but  in  the 
practice  of  milling  it  is  found  in  the 
upper  fraction  of  red-dog,  shorts,  and 
in  the  finer  grain  offal.  This  middle 


WAR  BREAD  77 

fraction,  (which  we  may  term  the 
germ  fraction,  denominating  the 
coarser  grain  offal  as  the  bran  frac- 
tion), is  as  rich  in  carbohydrate  as 
straight  flour  and  is  appreciably  richer 
in  protein.  From  the  standpoint  of 
nutritive  units,  either  expressed  in 
analysis  or  in  physiological  tests,  there 
is  gain  when  wheat  is  milled  to  88  per 
cent,  as  compared  to  78  per  cent.,  this 
gain  being  especially  in  the  direction 
of  protein. 

The  nutritive  content  of  the  bran 
fraction,  that  is  above  88  per  cent.,  is 
low.  It  is  largely  cellulose  and  min- 
eral matter.  The  germ  contains  both 
ferments  and  bacteria,  and  is,  there- 
fore, prone  to  decomposition.  The 
ferments  split  the  fats,  making  them 
rancid.  They  act  upon  the  protein 
also.  Aided  by  bacteria,  they  pro- 
duce the  musty  decomposition  that  is 
liable  to  occur  in  coarse  flours,  and 


78  WAR  BREAD 

does  not  occur  in  standard  flours  under 
the  same  circumstances.  Flours  ex- 
tracted to  88  per  cent.,  that  is,  contain- 
ing the  endosperm  and  the  germ  frac- 
tion, do  not  keep  in  the  same  way  that 
the  standard  flours  keep.  They  pos- 
sess a  distinctly  different  taste,  and 
breads  made  from  them  carry  this 
taste, — a  taste  that  is  not  unpleasant. 
Flours  extracted  to  85-88  per  cent, 
have,  for  practical  purposes,  come  into 
common  use  only  during  this  war. 
Before  the  war  in  Europe  and  in  this 
country,  we  had  patent,  bakers  patent, 
straight  flour  and  so-called  graham 
and  whole  wheat  flours.  Graham 
flour  is  supposed  to  contain  the  entire 
wheat  berry.  Whole  wheat  flour  is 
supposed  to  be  produced  after  decorti- 
cation  of  the  berry.  In  actual  prac- 
tice, there  is  very  little  of  such  flours 
produced  in  the  United  States.  What 
is  sold  for  graham  and  whole  wheat 


WAR  BREAD  79 

flour  is  standard  flour  into  which  the 
bran  fraction  has  been  sifted  back;  it 
does  not  contain  the  germ  fraction,  i.e., 
it  is  degerminated.  In  other  words,  it 
does  not  possess  the  nutrients  of  the 
germ  fraction,  but  is  merely  standard 
flour  to  which  the  roughage  of  the  bran 
fraction  has  been  added.  Graham 
flour  prepared  by  sifting  bran  back 
into  standard  flour  keeps  fairly  well. 
The  true  graham  flour  keeps  badly  on 
account  of  the  tendency  of  the  germ 
to  decompose.  It  is  possible  on  a 
small  scale  to  sterilize  whole  wheat 
flour,  but  this  has  never  been  at- 
tempted upon  a  large  commercial 
basis. 

Now  it  is  clear  that  the  nutrients 
could  be  increased,  that  is,  wheat  flour 
stretched,  by  raising  the  extraction 
from  our  present  figure  of  75  per  cent, 
to  88  per  cent.  Whether  it  would  be 
wise  to  do  this  depends  upon  the  an- 


80  WAR  BREAD 

swers  to  three  questions.  Will  the 
flour  keep  under  the  conditions  in 
which  flour  is  used  in  the  United 
States?  Are  the  breads  prepared 
from  higher  extraction  flours  satisfac- 
tory? Do  these  breads  agree  with  the 
digestion  of  the  consumer? 

As  regards  the  first  question,  it 
would  certainly  lead  to  losses  if  all  the 
wheat  in  America  were  milled  either 
to  European  standard  of  85  per  cent, 
or  88  per  cent.,  or  prepared  as  whole 
wheat  flour  and  distributed  through 
the  American  market  as  at  present  con- 
trolled. It  is  possible  in  Europe  to 
mill  wheat  in  their  way  because  the 
flour  is  consumed  within  a  few  weeks 
after  it  is  produced.  In  Europe  there 
is  practically  no  such  thing  as  house- 
hold baking,  and  flour  is  consumed 
promptly  after  leaving  the  mills. 
Here  sixty  per  cent,  of  the  people  bake 
their  own  bread,  half  of  our  flour  en- 


WAR  BREAD  81 

ters  the  household  larder,  different 
classes  buy  flour  in  large  amounts,  it 
must  keep  for  months  under  difficult 
conditions  of  temperature  and  mois- 
ture. The  common  experience  with 
whole  wheat  flour  is  that  it  spoils  rap- 
idly, even  in  the  hands  of  the  trade; 
and  this  is  one  reason  why  whole  wheat 
flours  are  expensive.  Unless  some 
control  could  be  devised  whereby  the 
consumption  of  flour  would  occur 
within  a  few  weeks  of  production,  we 
may  be  sure  that  to  include  the  germ 
fraction  in  the  flour  would  lead  to 
heavy  losses.  These  losses  would 
cause  grave  dissatisfaction,  and  would 
probably  more  than  balance  the  in- 
crease in  the  amount  of  flour  gained 
through  higher  extraction.  To  pre- 
pare all  of  our  flour  in  the  state  of 
our  present  graham  flour,  merely  sift 
back  the  bran  into  standard  flour, 
would  for  practical  purposes  only  add 


82  WAR  BREAD 

roughage  and  would  not  contribute  to 
nutritive  value.  The  additional  nu- 
trient lies  in  the  finer  offal,  where,  un- 
fortunately, also  resides  the  tendency 
to  decomposition. 

The  writer  has  tested  several  whole 
wheat  flours  made  by  small  mills  that 
employ  cutting  or  crushing  rather  than 
rolling.  These  flours  yield  very  good 
breads,  better  than  any  made  from  or- 
dinary whole  wheat  flours.  In  a  cer- 
tain sense,  these  whole  wheat  flours 
bear  the  same  relation  to  the  common 
whole  wheat  flours  that  water-ground 
cornmeal  bears  to  the  common  meal. 
Like  water-ground  cornmeal,  unfortu- 
nately, these  special  whole  wheat 
flours  cannot  be  produced  upon  a  large 
scale. 

Breads  made  from  flours  containing 
the  endosperm  and  the  germ  fraction 
are  not  usually  good  breads.  The 
writer  has  eaten  breads  baked  from 


WAR  BREAD  83 

flours  of  81,  85,  88,  93  and  97  per 
cent,  extraction  in  Germany,  England 
and  France.  European  bakers  have 
worked  for  over  two  years  to  produce 
good  breads  from  these  flours.  It  has 
not  been  routinely  accomplished  in  any 
country.  The  methods  of  bread  bak- 
ing are  very  different  in  France,  Italy, 
Germany  and  England.  The  stand- 
ards of  what  constitutes  good  bread 
and  the  tastes  of  the  public  are  differ- 
ent. In  not  one  of  these  countries 
have  the  bakers  been  able  to  meet  the 
tastes  of  the  consuming  classes  with 
breads  made  from  flours  containing 
the  endosperm  and  the  germ  fraction. 
The  loaf  is  smaller,  the  moisture  con- 
tent higher,  often  tending  to  sogginess, 
does  not  crust  well,  does  not  toast  well, 
and  remains,  when  all  is  said  and 
done,  an  unsatisfactory  bread.  The 
revulsion  against  this  bread  has  been 
audible  in  every  country,  the  people 


84  WAR  BREAD 

have  repeatedly  petitioned  that  they  be 
given  less  bread  and  better  bread. 
France  once  reduced  her  extraction 
five  per  cent,  in  order  to  meet  the 
wishes  of  the  people.  In  every  coun- 
try they  furnish  to  soldiers  bread 
made  of  lower  extraction  flour  than  the 
standard  issued  for  the  civilian 
classes.  The  graham  bread  made  in 
this  country  from  flour  produced  by 
sifting  bran  back  into  standard  flour 
is  much  better  than  the  average  war- 
bread  of  Europe,  produced  from  an 

85  per  cent,  extraction  that  contains 
the   germ   but   does   not  contain   the 
bran.     The  presence  of  bran  seems  to 
aid  in  holding  up  the  texture  of  the 
bread  and  making  it  lighter.     True 
whole-wheat  bread  is  lighter  and  bet- 
ter than  the  war-bread  of  Europe  made 
from  81-88  per  cent,  extraction. 

It  has  been  the  experience  in  the 
European  countries  that  breads  pre- 


WAR  BREAD  85 

pared  from  higher  extraction  flours  do 
not  agree  with  many  individuals. 
This  holds  as  true  of  breads  made 
from  the  85  per  cent,  extraction  as 
from  the  93  per  cent,  extraction. 
Many  children  and  adults  fail  to  di- 
gest these  breads.  The  result  is  dis- 
comfort and  often  colic,  gaseous  fer- 
mentation, and  resultant  disturbances 
of  intestinal  functions.  It  is  not 
merely  the  result  of  increased  rough- 
age in  the  diet.  Graham  breads  made 
of  flour  produced  by  adding  bran  to 
standard  flour  do  not  disagree  with 
people  in  this  country  in  the  way  that 
the  85  per  cent,  extraction  breads  of 
Europe  disagree  with  people  there. 
The  disagreement  lies  apparently  less 
in  the  bran  fraction  than  in  the  germ 
fraction,  or  in  the  resultant  changes 
in  the  bread  that  the  germ  fraction  in- 
troduces. The  disturbances  are  usu- 
ally not  serious,  except  in  children, 


86  WAR  BREAD 

but  they  accentuate  the  dissatisfaction 
with  the  breads.  If  a  bread  does  not 
look  like  good  bread,  keep  like  good 
bread  or  taste  like  good  bread,  and  in 
addition  does  not  agree  as  does  good 
bread,  the  sentiment  of  the  people 
turns  against  it,  and  higher  extrac- 
tion can  be  justifiable  only  on  the 
ground  of  dire  necessity.  It  is  the 
experience  of  the  nations  at  war  in 
Europe  that  they  would  abandon 
higher  extraction  and  return  to  mixed 
flours  prepared  from  standard  flour, 
provided  this  were  possible.  Breads 
made  in  England  of  standard  Amer- 
ican flour  diluted  with  an  admixing 
flour  are  much  better  than  straight 
breads  of  85  per  cent,  extraction 
flour.  The  Victory  Bread  of  the 
United  States  is  so  superior  to  the  war- 
bread  of  the  Allies  and  of  the  enemies 
as  to  be  past  comparison.  Not  only 
is  the  quality  of  Victory  Bread  ex- 


WAR  BREAD  87 

cellent,  but  it  contains  more  calories 
to  the  pound  than  straight  wheat  bread. 
One  plea  in  favour  of  whole  wheat 
flour  frequently  advanced  is  that  it 
contains  vitamines  and  mineral  mat- 
ters that  are  not  contained  in  standard 
flour.  This  is  true.  There  are  no 
studies  to  indicate  the  richness  of  the 
middle  or  germ  fraction  in  vitamine 
and  mineral  matters.  One  might  in- 
fer that  the  vitamine  is  contained  in 
the  germ  fraction  and  that  the  mineral 
matters  are  contained  largely  in  the 
bran  fraction,  but  this  is  an  inference 
and  not  a  statement  of  analysis  or  ex- 
periment. When  the  diet  lacks  min- 
erals, roughage  and  vitamines,  then 
the  use  of  whole  grains  is  necessary. 
But,  it  is  precisely  in  war-time  that 
this  is  not  likely  to  occur.  In  the  diet 
of  the  nations  at  war  there  is  a  pro- 
fusion of  vegetables,  more  than  in 
peace-time,  that  contain  minerals. 


88  WAR  BREAD 

roughage  and  vitamines  freely.  Go 
where  one  will,  in  the  United  King- 
dom, France,  Germany,  Switzerland 
or  Holland,  one  finds  the  diet  of  the 
people  today  rougher,  coarser,  and 
containing  more  vegetables  and  less 
concentrated  foodstuffs  than  in  peace- 
time. As  a  people  adapt  themselves 
more  and  more  to  the  exigencies  of 
war-time  stress,  they  turn  to  coarser 
plants,  the  diet  becomes  more  vege- 
tarian. With  our  war  gardens  of  last 
year  our  people  consumed  vegetables 
in  excess  of  previous  custom  and  that 
will  be  the  case  again  this  year. 
Vitamines  and  mineral  matters  are  not 
contained  in  the  covering  of  the  grains 
in  a  particular  or  exclusive  manner. 
All  fruits  and  vegetables  contain 
water-soluble  vitamines.  Milk  and 
beef  and  leaf  vegetables  are  rich  in 
fat-soluble  vitamines,  in  which  the 
grains  are  poor.  We  must  develop 


WAR  BREAD  89 

the  use  of  dairy  products  in  order  to 
conserve  the  invaluable  fat-soluble 
vitamines  which  the  grains  cannot  give 
us.  Under  these  circumstances,  the 
plea  for  whole-wheat  flour  in  the 
American  diet  today  fails  of  justifica- 
tion from  this  point  of  view.  People 
should  be  allowed  to  select  their 
roughage,  whether  in  the  form  of 
fruits  or  vegetables  or  in  the  form  of 
whole  grains.  They  should  be  al- 
lowed to  select  their  mineral  salts  and 
vitamines  in  the  same  manner,  and 
both  are  freely  available.  The  legal 
distinction  between  food  conservation 
and  health  propaganda  must  be  kept 
in  mind.  It  is  argued  in  favour  of 
whole  wheat  flour  that  its  use  might 
relieve  or  prevent  constipation,  rick- 
ets, scurvy,  anaemia,  and  pellagra. 
But  the  function  of  a  food  administra- 
tion is  to  secure  and  conserve  food, 
not  treat  pre-existing  diseases  in  a 


90  WAR  BREAD 

compulsory  manner,  applied  to  the 
majority  who  are  not  afflicted  as  well 
as  to  the  minority  who  may  be  dis- 
eased but  still  possess  the  right  to 
select  their  treatment.  In  each  coun- 
try at  war  diet  fads  are  being  pushed 
at  the  food  administrations,  who  must 
confine  themselves  to  the  specific  func- 
tions defined  by  legislative  authoriza- 
tion. 

Nutrient  units  are  to  be  gained,  as 
a  war-time  proposition  in  Europe,  in 
flours  of  whole  wheat.  It  is  possible 
that  we  could  extract  our  grain  some- 
what higher,  78-80  per  cent.,  without 
loss  of  flour  through  decomposition. 
But  the  idea  of  milling  all  our  wheat 
as  whole-wheat  flour  cannot  be  com- 
mended from  any  point  of  view,  as  a 
war-time  proposition  applied  to  the 
American  people.  There  is  an  abun- 
dant production  of  whole  wheat  flour 
for  those  who  desire  it.  Mixed-flour 


WAR  BREAD  91 

breads  and  the  use  of  supplementary 
cereals  in  substitution  of  bread  repre- 
sent for  the  average  American  the  best 
solution  of  the  problem  of  stretching 
our  scanty  supplies  of  wheat. 

When  a  people  possesses  very 
limited  supplies  of  bread  grains,  it 
may  find  itself  driven  to  stretchings 
that  are  largely  or  wholely  dimen- 
sional and  not  nutritive.  That  has 
been  the  situation  of  the  German  peo- 
ple several  times  during  the  past  two 
years.  Very  short  of  wheat,  rye  and 
barley,  and  having  no  oats,  corn,  rice 
or  other  cereals  that  could  be  sub- 
stituted, certain  classes  in  Germany 
have  fallen  back  upon  such  diluents 
as  birch  buds,  straw,  clover  hay  and 
wood  pulp.  The  birch  buds  and 
clover  hay  offer  a  limited  amount  of 
nutrients  to  the  human  digestion,  the 
straw  and  wood  offers  none,  as  care- 
ful tests  in  Germany  have  demon- 


92  WAR  BREAD 

strated.  Nevertheless  cellulose  bread, 
as  it  has  been  termed,  is  still  recom- 
mended, since  it  enlarges  the  size  of 
the  loaf  and  acts  as  filling  for  the  di- 
gestive tract.  Alfalfa  flour  mixed 
with  wheat  flour  makes  a  good  bread ; 
it  is  indeed  an  open  question  whether, 
from  the  standpoint  of  constituents, 
flour  of  ordinary  flour  plus  alfalfa 
would  not  be  esteemed  superior  to 
whole  wheat  flour.  Feeds  can  of 
course  be  used  as  foods;  but  with  our 
supplies  of  oats,  barley,  rice  and  corn, 
to  say  nothing  of  white  and  sweet 
potato  and  peanut,  we  are  driven  to 
no  such  alternative,  even  should  our 
supplies  of  wheat  and  rye  unhappily 
continue  low  through  another  year. 

Whatever  the  state  of  our  stocks  of 
wheat,  our  stock  of  courage  must  re- 
main high. 


WASTE  IN  WHEAT 

THERE  is  a  considerable  waste  in 
bread-grains,  although  it  is  not 
capable  of  accurate  measurement, 
both  in  the  industrial  use  of  flour  and 
in  subsistence.  There  is  a  consider- 
able feeding  of  wheat  to  poultry  and 
other  domesticated  animals,  and  it  is 
not  all  screenings  by  any  manner  of 
means.  Wheat  flour  is  used  in  cer- 
tain textile  processes,  in  pastes,  in 
foundries  and  in  a  variety  of  minor 
industrial  operations.  The  wheat 
flour  thus  used  is  supposed  to  be  made 
of  wheat  of  low  grade,  or  flour  con- 
demned for  purposes  of  human  food. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  a  considerable 
amount  of  straight  flour  has  been  de- 
voted to  these  ends. 

93 


94  WAR  BREAD 

There  is,  apparently,  little  waste  of 
flour  in  the  commercial  baking  of 
bread,  but  there  is  a  considerable 
waste  in  connection  with  marketing. 
It  has  been  the  custom  of  bakers  to 
supply  retailers  with  amounts  of  bread 
in  excess  of  their  usual  trade  in  order 
that  they  should  never  run  short,  just 
as  in  the  case  of  newspapers.  The 
unsold  bread  the  retailer  was  per- 
mitted to  return.  The  old  bread  was 
thereupon  sold  by  the  baker  at  lower 
prices  to  the  poor  in  cities,  or  was  sold 
for  animal  consumption.  This  waste, 
which  was  not  inconsiderable,  repre- 
sented merely  an  economic  conveni- 
ence, and  under  the  present  regula- 
tions of  the  Food  Administration  bak- 
ers accept  no  bread  returns.  Any- 
thing that  makes  the  baker  judge  his 
trade  more  accurately  tends  to  reduce 
the  consumption  of  bread  but  it  tends 


WAR  BREAD  95 

also  to  increase  slightly  the  cost  to  the 
baker. 

In  the  actual  baking  operations, 
there  is  very  little  waste  in  commercial 
bakeries.  Their  formulas  are  well 
worked  out,  the  amounts  of  ingredi- 
ents accurately  standardized,  the  tem- 
perature is  regulated,  the  period  of 
fermentation  under  control,  the  heat  of 
the  ovens  is  properly  maintained  and 
very  few  batches  go  wrong.  In  an 
attempt  to  produce  new  breads,  such 
as  Victory  Bread,  bakers  may  en- 
counter losses  for  a  few  days;  but  with 
the  use  of  standard  flour  75  parts  and 
substitution  25  parts,  or  even  with  a 
combination  of  seventy  and  thirty, 
bakers  should  produce  bread  of  good 
quality  without  loss. 

There  is  some  waste  in  the  use  of 
flour  in  baking  in  the  home.  If  the 
family  does  not  contain  many  hard 


96  WAR  BREAD 

workers,  the  tendency  is  to  prepare  a 
larger  batch  of  bread  than  can  be  con- 
sumed in  the  time  that  bread  will  re- 
main fresh,  and  unless  ingenuity  on 
the  part  of  the  housewife  in  the  utiliza- 
tion of  stale  bread  is  highly  developed, 
a  great  deal  of  stale  bread  goes  to 
dogs,  cats  and  poultry,  and  into  the 
garbage  pail.  All  investigations  of 
garbage  in  cities  indicates  that  there 
has  been  a  considerable  waste  in  stale 
bread.  This  was  also  true  in  the  can- 
tonments in  the  early  months  of  the 
war,  and  represents  a  type  of  waste 
to  which  we  as  a  people  had  become 
accustomed.  By  a  check-up  in  waste 
bread,  and  by  the  issue  of  flour  only 
as  it  is  needed,  the  flour  consumption 
of  the  cantonments  during  the  past 
three  months  has  been  reduced  over 
one-half  from  the  figure  of  issue  to 
the  regular  Army  for  1913.  This  il- 
lustrates how  much  can  be  accom- 


WAR  BREAD  97 

plished  through  far-sighted  conserva- 
tion. Where  flour  is  used  for  quick 
breads,  as  in  the  preparation  of  baking 
powder  biscuits,  hot  cakes,  etc.,  if 
these  are  not  consumed  at  the  time  of 
baking,  they  are  often  not  eaten  at 
all;  and  unless  baking  of  these  articles 
is  restricted  to  the  actual  amount 
needed,  there  is  waste  of  flour. 

Household  waste  of  flour  is  a  matter 
that  is  directly  and  solely  up  to  the 
housewife.  If  she  will  control  her 
purchases  of  flour,  carefully  gauge 
all  preparation  in  proportion  to  the 
number  in  the  family  and  the  work 
they  are  doing,  and  make  it  a  rule 
that  any  product  of  flour  is  not  to  be 
thrown  away  or  fed  to  animals  under 
any  circumstances,  the  waste  of  flour 
in  the  household  will  be  practically 
eliminated.  The  crucial  feature  of 
control  lies  in  limitation  of  purchase. 
If  the  housewife  buys  not  more  than 


98  WAR  BREAD 

six  pounds  of  flour  per  person  per 
month,  directly  and  indirectly,  she 
forces  herself  to  face  the  alternative 
of  waste  or  use  up  to  this  figure;  then 
it  will  be  found  that  waste  will  be 
eliminated  and  the  flour  will  be  con- 
sumed. 

•  •  •  •  • 

Every  American  has  been  asked  to 
buy  a  war  bond.  Every  American  is 
now  asked  to  save  wheat.  To  buy  a 
bond  is  an  investment,  to  save  wheat  is 
a  duty  as  well  as  a  task,  our  first  war 
burden.  Our  people  must  solve  this 
problem.  We  must  solve  it,  because 
the  subsistence  of  our  Allies  depends 
upon  the  solution.  We  must  solve  it 
because  our  own  subsistence  would 
be  jeopardized  by  failure.  But  even 
wider  considerations  make  success  of 
crucial  importance.  Morale  is  in- 
volved. The  morale  of  our  Allies 
will  be  raised  by  our  success  or  low- 


WAR  BREAD  99 

ered  by  our  failure,  they  will  inter- 
pret our  war  spirit  in  the  light  of  our 
reaction  to  this  problem.  Our  morale 
will  be  raised  by  success  in  this  under- 
taking or  lowered  by  failure,  because 
we  will  judge  ourselves  by  the  out- 
come. With  sound  native  spirit,  con- 
scious of  the  justness  of  our  cause, 
in  the  impelling  ardour  of  youth  but 
without  definition  by  the  individual  of 
the  things  that  make  for  warfare,  we 
are  driving  forward.  Success  in  the 
first  steps  means  much,  like  a  good 
start  in  a  race.  We  must  save  in 
many  things  in  this  war,  let  us  get  into 
the  saving  stride  now.  In  facing  the 
first  definite  act  of  reconstruction  of 
our  lives  as  a  step  in  warfare,  each 
stands  before  the  bar  of  individual 
conscience. 

By  their  bread  shall  ye  know  them! 

PRINTED    IN    THE    UNITED    STATES    OF   AMERICA 


*"THE  following  pages  contain  advertisements 
of  books  by  the  same  author  or  on  kindred 
subjects. 


The  Food  Problem 

BY  VERNON   KELLOGG  AND  ALONZO  E. 

TAYLOR  $1.25 

"  Food  is  always  more  or  less  of  a  problem  in 
every  phase  of  its  production,  handling  and  consump- 
tion. It  is  a  problem  with  every  farmer,  every  trans- 
porter and  seller,  every  householder.  It  is  a  problem 
with  every  town,  state  and  nation.  And  now  very 
conspicuously,  it  is  a  problem  with  three  great 
groups,  namely  the  Allies,  The  Central  Empires  and 
The  Neutrals;  in  a  word  it  is  a  great  international 
problem." 

These  sentences  from  the  introduction  indicate  the 
scope  of  The  Food  Problem  by  Vernon  Kellogg  and 
Alonzo  E.  Taylor. 

Both  authors  are  members  of  the  United  States 
Food  Administration.  Dr.  Kellogg  is  also  connected 
with  the  Commission  for  relief  in  Belgium  and  pro- 
fessor in  Stanford  University.  Mr.  Taylor  is  a  mem- 
ber of  the  Exports  Administrative  Board  and  pro- 
fessor in  the  University  of  Pennsylvania.  The  pre- 
face is  by  Herbert  Hoover,  United  States  Food 
Administrator  and  Chairman  for  the  Commission  of 
Relief  in  Belgium. 

The  food  problem  of  today,  of  our  nation,  there- 
fore, has  as  its  most  conspicuous  phase  an  interna- 
tional character.  Some  of  the  questions  which  the 
book  considers  are: 

What  is  the  Problem  in  detail? 

What  are  the  general  conditions  of  its  solution? 

What  are  the  immediate  and  particulars  which  con- 
cern us,  and  are  within  our  power  to  affect? 

And  finally,  what  are  we  actually  doing  to  meet  our 
problem  ? 

TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 
Introduction:     The  International  Problem. 
Part  I.     The  Problem  and  the  Solution. 
Chapter      I.     The  Food  Situation  of  the  Western  Al- 
lies and  the  United  States. 
II.     Food   Administration. 

III.  How    England,    France    and    Italy    are 

Controlling  and  Saving  Food. 

IV.  Food  Control   in  Germany  and  Its  Les- 

sons. 

Part  II.     The  Technology  of  Food  Use. 
Chapter      V.     The  Physiology  of  Nutrition. 

VI.     The  Sociology  of  Nutrition. 
VII.     The  Sociology    of    Nutrition    (Con- 
tinued). 

VIII.     Grain  and  Alcohol. 
Conclusion:     Patriotism  and  Food. 

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SOME  ASPECTS  OF  FOOD  ECONOMY 

BY  MARY  S.  ROSE 

Everyday  Foods  in  War  Time 

$.80 

This  little  book  was  written  in  response  to  a  re- 
quest for  a  "  war  message  about  food."  It  gives  a 
simple  explanation  of  the  part  which  some  of  our 
common  foods  play  in  our  diet,  and  points  out  how 
the  necessary  saving  of  fat,  fuel,  sugar,  and  meat 
can  be  made  without  a  loss  of  health  or  strength. 

There  are  chapters  on  the  Milk  Pitcher  in  the 
Home;  Cereals  We  Ought  to  Eat;  Meats  We  Ought 
to  Save;  The  Potato  and  Its  Substitutes;  Are  Fruits 
and  Vegetables  Luxuries?  Sugar  and  Spice  and 
Everything  Nice;  On  Being  Economical  and  Pa- 
triotic at  the  Same  Time. 


Feeding  the  Family 

$2.10 

This  is  a  clear  concise  account  in  simple  everyday 
terms  of  the  ways  in  which  modern  knowledge  of  the 
science  of  nutrition  may  be  applied  in  ordinary  life. 
The  food  needs  of  the  members  of  the  typical  family 
group  —  men,  women,  infants,  children  of  various 
•  ages  —  are  discussed  in  separate  chapters,  and  many 
illustrations  in  the  form  of  food  plans  and  dietaries 
are  included.  The  problems  of  the  housewife  in  try- 
ing to  reconcile  the  needs  of  different  ages  and  tastes 
at  the  same  table  are  also  taken  up,  as  are  the  cost 
of  food  and  the  construction  of  menus.  A  final  chap- 
ter deals  with  feeding  the  sick. 


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The  Book  of  Cheese 


BY  CHARLES  THOM 

Mycologist   in    charge    of   Microbiological    Laboratory, 

Bureau  of  Chemistry,  United  States  Department  of 

Agriculture;    formerly   Investigator   in    Cheese 

at  Connecticut  Agricultural  College 

AND 
WALTER  W.  FISK 

Assistant    Professor    of    Dairy    Industry,    New    York 
State  College  of  Agriculture  at  Cornell  University 

An  exposition  of  the  processes  of  making  and  han- 
dling a  series  of  important  varieties  of  cheese.  The 
kinds  considered  are  those  made  commercially  in 
America  or  widely  met  in  the  trade  here.  The  re- 
lation of  cheese  to  milk  and  to  its  production  and 
composition  has  been  presented  in  so  far  as  required 
for  this  purpose. 

After  a  general  statement  on  cheese,  the  authors 
consider  the  following  subjects:  The  milk  in  its  re- 
lation to  cheese;  Coagulating  materials;  Lactic  start- 
ers; Curd  making;  Classification  of  cheese;  Cheese 
with  sour  milk  flavor;  Soft  cheeses  ripened  by  mold; 
Soft  cheeses  ripened  by  bacteria;  Semi-hard  cheeses; 
The  hard  cheeses;  Cheddar  cheese  making;  Compo- 
sition and  yield  of  Cheddar  cheese;  Cheddar  cheese 
ripening;  The  Swiss  and  Italian  groups;  Miscellaneous 
varieties  and  by-products;  Cheese  factory  construc- 
tion, equipment,  organization;  History  and  develop- 
ment of  the  cheese  industry  in  America;  Testing; 
Marketing;  Cheese  in  the  household. 


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THE  RURAL  TEXT-BOOK  SERIES 

EDITED  BY  L.  H.  BAILEY 

Butter 

BY  E.  S.  GUTHRIE 

Professor  in  the  Dairy  Department,  New  York  State 
College    of    Agriculture,    Cornell    University 

A  practical  discussion  of  the  general  char- 
acteristics of  butter,  and  of  all  of  the  problems 
connected  with  its  manufacture  and  marketing, 
together  with  a  brief  history  of  the  product. 
Among  the  topics  considered  are  the  history 
of  butter;  composition  and  food  value  of  but- 
ter; cleansing  and  care  of  dairy  utensils;  care 
<of  milk  and  cream ;  cream  separation ;  grading 
milk  and  cream  and  neutralizing  acidity;  pas- 
teurization; cream  ripening;  churning,  wash- 
ing, salting  and  packing  butter;  flavors  of 
butter;  storage  of  butter;  marketing;  whey 
butter,  renovated  and  ladled  butter ;  margarine, 
and  testing. 


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